悼高尔基
Mourning the Death of Maxim Gorky
◎ 叶紫
◎ Ye Zi
高尔基是我受影响最大，得益最多，而且最敬爱的一个作家。
Maxim Gorky has exerted enormous influence on me and benefited me a lot. He is my most beloved writer.
当从报纸上得到他的病讯的时候，我正应一个朋友的邀约，准备到杭州去作一个短时间的旅行，为了挂念这病着的大作家，我带了两本最心爱的他底著作：一本是《短篇创作选集》，一本是《草原故事》。因为从这两本书里，我可以看到这个作家的伟大的灵魂，也可以学到一些“怎样去生活”的方法。
I learned of his illness from newspapers when I was about to leave for Hangzhou for a short visit at the invitation of a friend. Deeply concerned about the ailing literary giant, I took with me two books that were my favourites among his works: Selected Short Stories of Maxim Gorky and Stories of the Grassland, believing they would afford me an insight into his great soul and teach me how to “live on”.
当然，他的伟大还不仅仅是这两本书，我爱他的也不仅仅是这三数篇作品。
Of course, it is not these two books alone that have contributed to his eminence, nor have I come to love him by reading only one or two of his works.
然而我所得到的关于这两本书的益处，也就不少了。
Yet it has certainly done me much good to read exclusively the two books in question.
虽然在旅行中，我是每天都在挂念着他的消息。
On my way to Hangzhou, I was daily on the lookout for news about him.
我看到他体热降低，我觉得欢喜，看到他体热增高，我觉得忧虑，而且也更能从那两本书里看出他的伟大处来。
I felt relieved whenever his body temperature dropped, and otherwise I felt worried. And the two books I was reading made me impressed with his greatness all the more.
他的死讯，是我重回上海的第二天才得到的，我的心里当时觉得一下子沉下去了！
When I learned of his death on the second day after my return to Shanghai, my heart sank.
我不能找出一句适当的话来形容我底心中的悲哀和纪念他的人格的伟大！
Words failed me as to how grieved I was and how inspired I was with respect for him.
他的死，不但是苏联的损失，而且是全世界文学青年的损失。
His death is a loss not only to the Soviet Union, but also to all young devotees to literature the world over.
因为我们将再得不到他的新的指示，再看不到他的新的伟大的作品了。
No longer can we receive new instruction from him; no longer can we read his new remarkable works.
纪念他和哀痛他，只能由他遗留下来的作品里去找寻我们“怎样去生活”的路。
What we can do while commemorating and mourning for the great writer is to search among the works he has left behind for guidance as to how to “live on”.
这“路”是非常的长的，黑暗而且艰难的，他的作品将永远像一盏明灯那样地照耀我们前进！
The way before us is very long, and dark and arduous. His works, however, will shine permanently like a beacon to guide our advance.
画鸟的猎人
The Hunter and Bird Painting
◎ 艾青
◎ Ai Qing
一个人想学打猎，找到一个打猎的人，拜他做老师。他向那打猎的人说：“人必须有一技之长，在许多职业里面，我所选中的是打猎，我很想持枪到树林里去，打到那我想打的鸟。”
A man wanted to learn hunting and offered to apprentice himself to a hunter, to whom he said, “One's got to have a speciality. Of all the different trades, I like hunting best. I hope I can go inside a woods with a shotgun and shoot down any bird I want to. ”
于是打猎的人检查了那个徒弟的枪，枪是一支好枪，徒弟也是一个有决心的徒弟，就告诉他各种鸟的性格，和有关瞄准与射击的一些知识，并且嘱咐他必须寻找各种鸟去练习。
The hunter checked on the quality of the would-be hunter's shotgun and saw it was all right. He also found the man to be quite determined to learn hunting. So he told him the different characteristics of various birds as well as how to aim and shoot. He also advised him to practise shooting on various kinds of birds.
那个人听了猎人的话，以为只要知道如何打猎就已经能打猎了，于是他持枪到树林。
Thereupon, the man believed that the hunter's words had already made a good hunter of himself. So he went inside a woods, shotgun in hand.
但当他一进入树林，走到那里，还没有举起枪，鸟就飞起了。
However, to his great dismay, wherever he went, all the birds just flew away even before he raised his shotgun.
于是他又来找猎人，他说：“鸟是机灵的，我没有看见它们，它们先看见我，等我一举起枪，鸟早已飞走了。”
So he went to call on the hunter again, saying, “Birds are clever. They discover me before I see them. They're gone before I raise my shotgun.”
猎人说：“你是想打那不会飞的鸟么？”
“Do you mean you want to shoot at only birds that can't fly?” asked the hunter.
他说：“说实在的，在我想打鸟的时候，要是鸟能不飞该多好呀！”
“Honestly,” the man replied, “how nice it would be if birds couldn't fly when I go hunting!”
猎人说：“你回去，找一张硬纸，在上面画一只鸟，把硬纸挂在树上，朝那鸟打——你一定会成功。”
“Go home and look for a piece of cardboard,” said the hunter. “Hang it up on a tree after you paint a bird on it. Then shoot at this bird, and you'll make it. ”
那个人回家，照猎人所说的做了，试验着打了几枪，却没有一枪能打中。
The man, after arriving home, did what the hunter had told him to do. But, alas, he fired several times without hitting the painted bird.
他只好再去找猎人。他说：“我照你说的做了，但我还是打不中画中的鸟。”
He had no choice but to go and see the hunter again, saying, “I've done everything the way you suggested, but without success." 
猎人问他是什么原因，他说：“可能是鸟画得太小，也可能是距离太远。”
The hunter asked him why and the man replied, “Maybe I've painted the bird too small, or fired from a place not close enough. ”
那猎人沉思了一阵向他说：“对你的决心，我很感动，你回去，把一张大一些的纸挂在树上，朝那纸打——这一次你一定会成功。”
The hunter went on after pondering for a moment, “I've been deeply touched by your strong will. Now you go home and hang up on the tree a larger sheet of cardboard for you to shoot at. You'll make it this time, I'm sure.”
那个人很担忧地问：“还是那个距离么？”
The man asked apprehensively, “Shoot from the same distance?”
猎人说：“由你自己去决定。”
“It's up to you to decide.”
那人又问：“那纸上还是画着鸟么？”
“There'll also be a bird painted on the cardboard?”
猎人说：“不。”
“No.”
那人苦笑了，说：“那不是打纸么？”
The man asked with a forced smile, “You mean I'm to target the cardboard only?”
猎人很严肃地告诉他说：“我的意思是，你先朝着纸只管打，打完了，就在有孔的地方画上鸟，打了几个孔，就画几只鸟——这对你来说，是最有把握的了。”
The hunter explained in good earnest, “What I mean is this: Keep firing at the cardboard as many times as you like. Then paint a bird wherever there is a hole. As a result, there will be as many birds as your holes. That's the way for you to be absolutely certain about your success.”
长寿之道
The Secret of Longevity
◎ 季羡林
◎ Ji Xianlin
我已经到了望九之年，可谓长寿矣。
Approaching ninety, I'm really old.
因此经常有人向我询问长寿之道，养生之术。
People often ask me for advice on how to keep fit and live a long life.
我敬谨答曰：“养生无术是有术。”
The answer I would give is, “The best way to keep fit is by making no efforts towards it. ”
这话看似深奥，其实极为简单明了。
That sounds profound, but is in fact very simple.
我有两个朋友，十分重视养生之道。
Two friends of mine put in great efforts to keep in good health. 
每天锻炼身体，至少要上两个钟头。
They spent at least two hours per day doing physical exercise.
曹操诗曰：“对酒当歌，人生几何？”
Cao Cao says in one of his poems like this: Cup to cup calls for song, Man's life—how long?
人生不过百年，每天费上两个钟头，统计起来，要有多少钟头啊！
Few people live to be 100. Two hours per day during one's lifetime—what a tremendous amount of time it would add up to! 
利用这些钟头，能做多少事情呀！
And what a lot could be done with that much time! 
如果真有用，也还罢了。
It would have been all right though if my two friends' physical exercise had really helped.
他们二人，一个先我而走，一个卧病在家，不能出门。
But fact is, one of the two has passed away before me and the other now never shows up, being confined to bed with illness.
因此，我首创了三“不”主义：不锻炼，不挑食，不嘀咕，名闻全国。
I'm known to all for having initiated three Nos, namely, no exercising, no picky eating, no grumbling.
我这个三不主义，容易招误会，我现在利用这个机会解释一下。
My three Nos, however, are apt to be misunderstood. So I need to take this opportunity to make an explanation.
我并不绝对反对适当的体育锻炼。但不要过头。
Exercise, if moderate, is all right, but I disapprove of overdoing it.
一个人如果天天望长寿如大旱之望云霓，而又绝对相信体育锻炼，则此人心态恐怕有点失常，反不如顺其自然为佳。
One who overrates physical training while dreaming of living a long life must be mentally unbalanced. He should learn to let things take their own course.
至于不挑食，常见有人年才逾不惑，就开始挑食，蛋黄不吃，动物内脏不吃，每到吃饭，战战兢兢，如履薄冰，窘态可掬，看了令人失笑。
As to picky eating, I often find people barely over forty becoming very choosy about food. They abstain from eating egg yolks and tripe. They behave gingerly at table as if treading on thin ice. The embarrassment they show cannot but evoke laughter from all.
以这种心态而欲求长寿，岂非南辕而北辙！
Acting with such a mentality, they can only end up in defeating their own purpose of increased longevity.
我个人认为，第三点最为重要。
To my mind, the last of the three Nos, i. e. , avoid grumbling under any circumstances, is the most important. 
对什么事情都不嘀嘀咕咕，心胸开朗，乐观愉快，吃也吃得下，睡也睡得着，有问题则设法解决之，有困难则努力克服之，决不视芝麻绿豆大的窘境如苏迷卢山般大，也决不毫无原则地随遇而安，决不玩世不恭。
Be broad-minded, optimistic and cheerful, and you will be able to eat with a good appetite and enjoy a sound sleep. When you are faced with problems, try every means to solve them. When you meet with difficulties, do your best to overcome them. Neither fret over trifles, nor take an attitude of cynical indifference towards life. 
有这样的心境，焉能不健康长寿？
That's the way to be long-lived.
我现在还想补充一点，很重要的一点。根据我个人七八十年的经验，一个人决不能让自己的脑筋投闲置散，要经常让脑筋活动着。
One more important point: According to my personal experience of the past eighty years or so, one should put his brain to frequent use instead of letting it stay idle. 
根据外国一些科学家实验结果，“用脑伤神”的旧说法已经不能成立，应改为“用脑长寿”。
The result of experiments made by some foreign scientists has shown that frequent use of the brain leads to longevity instead of doing harm to it as people used to believe. 
人的衰老主要是脑细胞的死亡。
Man's aging is mainly caused by the death of cerebral cells. 
中老年人的脑细胞虽然天天死亡，但人一生中所启用的脑细胞只占细胞总量的四分之一，而且在活动的情况下，每天还有新的脑细胞产生。
However, though the cerebral cells of middle-aged and elderly people keep dying every day, man uses up in his lifetime only one fourth of the total cerebral cells, and new cerebral cells will, under normal conditions, keep growing up daily. 
只要脑筋的活动不停止，新生细胞比死亡细胞数目还要多。
As long as you use your head regularly, dead cerebral cells will always be outnumbered by new ones. 
勤于动脑筋，则能经常保持脑中血液的流通状态，而且能通过脑筋协调控制全身的功能。
Regular use of the head will ensure the normal circulation of cerebral blood and our control of the whole bodily function through its coordination.
我过去经常说：“不要让脑筋闲着。”
I used to urge, “Never have an idle head!”
我就是这样做的，结果是有人说我“身轻如燕，健步如飞”。
And I myself have acted accordingly. Some people have consequently saddled me with the epithets: “agile like a swallow” and “walking as if on wings.”
这话有点过了头，反正我比同年龄人要好些，这都是真的。
They are exaggerating to be sure, but it's true that I'm in better health than people of the same age. 
原来我并没有什么科学根据，只能算是一种朴素的直觉。
The above has come of plain intuition, without any scientific basis.
这就是我的“长寿之道”。
So mush for my “secret of longevity”.
“伟大的空话”
“Great Empty Verbiage”
◎ 邓拓
◎ Deng Tuo
有的人擅长于说话，可以在任何场合，嘴里说个不停，真好比悬河之口，滔滔不绝。
Some people have a facile tongue. They talk on and on regardless of the occasion, words pouring out of their mouths incessantly, as it were, in a torrent.
但是，听完他的说话以后，稍一回想，都不记得他说的是什么了。
But, when we try to do a bit of recalling soon after listening to them, we find we have clean forgotten what they said.
这样的例子可以举出不少。
Like examples abound.
如果你随时留心，到处都可以发现。
Keep your eyes open, and you will find them here and there.
说这种话的人，有的自鸣得意，并且向别人介绍他的经验说：“我遵守古人语不惊人死不休的遗训，非用尽人类最伟大的语言不可。”
Some of those given to verbiage feel very pleased with themselves and are more than willing to share their experience with others, saying, “Our ancients say one shouldn't say anything but can cause great sensation. I therefore ought to follow their teachings by using nothing short of the greatest of human language. ”
你听，这是多么大的口气啊！
See, what a baloney!
可是，许多人一听他说话，就讥笑他在做“八股”。
Many listeners will laugh off what they are boasting about as bagu.
我却以为把这种话叫做“八股”并不确切，还是叫它做“伟大的空话”更恰当一些。
Personally, however, I think it more appropriate to call it “great empty verbiage” than bagu.
当然，它同八股是有密切关系的，也许只有从八股文中才能找到它的渊源。
Nevertheless, since it is closely related to bagu, the only way to trace its origin is perhaps from bagu.
举一个典型的例子吧，有一篇八股文写道：
Here is a typical example. A bagu essay begins with something like this:
夫天地者，六合宇宙之乾坤，大哉久矣，数千万年而非一日也。
O heaven and earth—the all-embracing, the cosmos, the universe! How great and everlasting it is, in existence for millions upon millions of years instead of one day!
你看，这作为一篇八股文的“破题”，读起来不是也很顺口吗？
See, the two sentences, known as poti, read quite smoothly, don't they?
其中不但有“天地”、“六合”、“宇宙”、“乾坤”等等大字眼，而且音调铿锵，煞是好听。
Not only are they composed of big words like “heaven and earth”, “all-embracing”, “cosmos”, “universe”, etc. , but also sound deep and clear, hence pleasant to the ear.
如果用标准的八股调子去念，可以使人摇头摆尾，忘其所以。
If you read them aloud according to the tone peculiar to a bagu essay, you may be so carried away as to start wagging your head with pleasure in spite of yourself.
但是，可惜得很，这里所用的许多大字眼，都是重复的同义语，因此，说了半天还是不知所云，越解释越糊涂，或者等于没有解释。
Unfortunately, these big words are nothing but redundant synonyms. As you read, you don't know what the writer is driving at with all his verbosity. And the more he talks, the more unintelligible his words become. Or you find him talking for nothing at all.
这就是伟大的空话的特点。
All that is characteristic of great empty verbiage.
不能否认，这种伟大的空话在某些特殊的场合是不可避免的，因而在一定的意义上有其存在的必要。
Undoubtedly, as empty verbiage is unavoidable on some specific occasions, there is need for its existence in a sense.
可是，如果把它普遍化起来，到处搬弄，甚至于以此为专长，那就相当可怕了。
But it would be extremely terrible to popularize it, flaunt it everywhere, or even regard it as one's special skill.
假若再把这种说空话的本领教给我们的后代，培养出这么一批专家，那就更糟糕了。
And even worse it is to educate our younger generation in the art of empty verbiage so as to develop a large number of relevant experts.
因此，遇有这样的事情，就必须加以劝阻。
We should therefore do our best to dissuade people from following such a trend whenever it happens.
凑巧得很，我的邻居有个孩子近来常常模仿大诗人的口气，编写了许多“伟大的空话”，形式以新诗为最多，并且他常常写完一首就自己朗诵，十分得意。
Quite incidentally, a kid of my neighbour's recently wrote a great many things in the manner of great poets, mostly in the form of modern poetry, but all were nothing but empty verbiage. Often, on finishing a new piece, he would read it aloud smugly.
不久以前，他写了一首《野草颂》，通篇都是空话。他写的是：
The other day, he wrote the following poem entitled Ode to Wild Grass, likewise packed with empty words:
老天是我们的父亲，
The sky is our father,
大地是我们的母亲，
The earth is our mother,
太阳是我们的保姆，
The sun is our nurse,
东风是我们的恩人，
The east wind is our benefactor,
西风是我们的敌人。
The west wind is our foe.
我们是一丛野草，
We are a tuft of wild grass,
有人喜欢我们，
Some people love us,
有人讨厌我们，
Some people hate us,
但是不管怎样，
But, come what may,
我们还要生长。
We'll keep growing.
你说这叫做什么诗？
Does it read like a poem?
我真为他担忧，成天写这类东西，将来会变成什么样子！
How I worry about the future of this kid who does nothing but write trash like that all the time!
如果不看题目，谁能知道他写的是野草颂呢？
Without looking at the title, one would never know that it was a poem eulogizing wild grass.
但是这个孩子写的诗居然有人予以夸奖，我不了解那是什么用意。
Yet, to my great surprise, the kid has been given a high compliment for the so-called poem! I wonder what has motivated the flattery.
这首诗里尽管也有天地、父母、太阳、保姆、东风、西风、恩人、敌人等等引人注目的字眼，然而这些都被他滥用了，变成了陈词滥调。
There are in the poem eye-catching terms like “sky”, “earth”, “father”, “mother”, “sun”, “nurse”, “east wind”, “west wind”, “benefactor”, “foe”, etc. , which have become hackneyed through abuse.
问他本人，他认为这样写才显得内容新鲜。实际上，他这么搞一点也不新鲜。
The kid may regard his way of writing as a means to novelty while in fact he achieves nothing novel at all.
任何语言，包括诗的语言在内，都应该力求用最经济的方式，表达最丰富的内容。
In all language, including poetic diction, we should strive for economy of expression, i. e. , using as few words as possible to express the maximum amount of content.
到了有话非说不可的时候，说出的话才能动人。
The language you use will be most effective only when you have an idea that you simply must put across.
否则内容空虚，即便用了最伟大的字眼和词汇，也将无济于事，甚至越说得多，反而越糟糕。
Otherwise, your speech will be empty of matter no matter how high-sounding the words and expressions you use. And the more you talk, the worse it is.
因此，我想奉劝爱说伟大的空话的朋友，还是多读，多想，少说一些，遇到要说话的时候，就去休息，不要浪费你自己和别人的时间和精力吧！
I, therefore, advise all friends indulging in empty talk to do more reading and thinking, but less talking. Resist the urge of empty talk so that you can take a rest and meanwhile avoid wasting the time and energies of yourself and others.
我的第一位美国老师
My First American Teacher
◎ 冯亦代
◎ Feng Yidai
如今，每逢我打开一本英文书时，眼前马上会浮起我那第一位美国老师的神态。
Whenever I open an English book, the image of my first American teacher will immediately appear before my eyes.
一九二九年我从初中毕业，考进了杭州闻名的美国浸礼会学校——蕙兰中学。这个学校以学风端正见称，而特别引人注意的是，它请美国老师直接教授英语。
In 1929, on finishing junior middle school, I was admitted after an examination to Huilan Middle School in Hangzhou. Established by the American Baptist Church, it was known for its good academic atmosphere. Strikingly enough, it had English lessons taught solely by American teachers.
我初中是在杭州安定中学毕业的，这个学校也以英语教学出名；不过它只是一所初中，没有高中，所以我不得不去投考蕙兰中学的高中了。
Anding, my junior middle school, was also known for its English language teaching, but, to complete my entire middle school education, I had to get transferred to Huilan, a senior middle school.
在蕙兰，英文开始读的书，读本是英国作家查理·兰姆的《莎士比亚故事集》，和商务印书馆的《泰西五十轶事》，以后则是厚厚的一本《现代世界》。最后一本书我们读了三个学期，是本世界地理书，这除了读英语，还培养了我关心世界大事的习惯。
At Huilan, my English lessons began with the following as textbooks: Charles Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, 50 Famous Stories from the West, published by the Commercial Press and finally the thick-volumed Modern World, which, actually a book on world geography, took us three semesters to finish learning. It helped me not only improve my English but also build up the habit of caring for world affairs.
文法书则读《纳氏文法》第三册。
The English grammar book we learned was Nesfield's Grammar, Book III.
这几本书除了《现代世界》，都是英国人编写的，水平比当时一般中学读的较为高深。
All the above-mentioned textbooks, except Modern World, were authored by Englishmen and hence of a higher level than those used in ordinary middle schools at that time.
我对查理·兰姆的《莎士比亚故事集》特别感到兴趣，老师还没有讲完，可是我自己却念完了，所以每次老师测验，我总名列前茅，因此受到老师的注意。
I was particularly interested in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, so much so that I finished reading each tale before the American teacher had explained it. I attracted her attention by always coming out on top in an exam.
我们的美国老师姓埃德加，名字则现在已记不清。
Her last name was Edgar, but I'm unable now to recall her first name.
她那时已有三四十岁了，身材不高，而体型已经开始发胖了。
She was then in her late thirties, short of stature and already beginning to be on the plump side.
她性格十分和善，即使对着我们这批毛孩子，她也是十分腼腆的。
She was very kind and gentle, and shy even with kids like us. 
但是她教书很严格，每逢学生没有准备好功课，或是测验的成绩不好，她总涨红着脸，数说学生们不用功。
But she was very strict about teaching. Whenever students failed to perform well in doing lessons or in exams, she would, with a flush in her face, criticize them for not studying hard enough.
她的口头禅：“祷告上帝，饶恕这批孩子们。”
The pet phrase she often used was, “God forgive you, my children! ”
她是美国浸礼会派来教书的，兼带着传教的任务，所以每逢礼拜日下午，她组成了一个查经班（Bible class），选了一批英语较为用功的学生去参加；因为她自己不会讲中国话，所以班里都要用英语对话。
She was sent to China by the American Baptist Church to do teaching and meanwhile missionary work. On Sunday afternoons, she would pick some students diligent in English studies to join her Bible class, in which all members had to converse in English because she herself couldn't speak Chinese.
我在查经班里曾经闹过一个笑话，这个笑话对于我以后学英语应注意的地方，是十分有用的。
A ridiculous error I made in the class turned out to be of great help to me in my later studies.
那天我们上班时，天忽然乌云四合，不久便下了瓢泼大雨。
One day, when I was in class, it suddenly clouded over and rained heavily.
我当时正在学副词，只记了个副词可以形容动词。于是我说：It's raining hardly。
I was then learning English adverbs. Thinking that an adverb could modify a verb, I said, “It's raining hardly. ”
这时埃德加小姐便说：It's raining hard。
Miss Edgar responded by saying, “It's raining hard. ”
可是第一次我还没有听明白，再说一句It's raining hardly。
But I failed to understand it and repeated my own sentence, “It's raining hardly. ”
埃德加小姐严肃地看了我一眼，又说一句It's raining hard。
She gave me a stern glance and said once more, “It's raining hard. ”
我猛然感觉到自己一定把hardly这个字用错了，但还不知道错在哪里。
Then I suddenly realized that there must be something wrong with the word “hardly” though I didn't know why. 
当时我没有再说话，可是心里很不安。
I kept quiet and felt very uneasy.
下课后埃德加温和地对我说，读书时要勤查字典，明白各个字的不同变化。
After class, she told me very gently that in order to know the different functions of a word, I should frequently look up a dictionary.
她不是在班上直接指出我的错误，如果这样做，肯定我下不了台。
To avoid embarrassing me, she had chosen not to directly point out my error in the classroom.
但是她要我自己发现错误，并由自己改正。
She wanted me to discover and correct the error by myself. 
这个故事给我的教训颇为深刻，导致我以后勤查字典的习惯。
The small incident, however, gave me a deep lesson. It has resulted in my habit of consulting a dictionary frequently. 
事情已经过去半个多世纪，但这个教训还深深埋在我的记忆里。
This lesson I learned more than half a century ago is today still deeply engraved in my memory.
每逢我读书不求甚解时，便提醒自己快去查字典，不但对英语如此，就是对汉语也是如此。
Whenever I do reading without understanding it thoroughly, I will remind myself to look up a dictionary quickly. That applies to Chinese as well as English learning.
从此我和她的感情极为融洽。
From then on, she and I were on very friendly terms.
高中二三年级时，正是中国的“九一八”和“一二八”，学生大都投入爱国救亡运动，我则更是忙碌，担任着杭州学生联合会的宣传工作，但我对于学习英语还是不放松，当然查经班是没有时间去了。
During the time when I was in the second and third grade of the senior middle school, most students joined the patriotic national salvation movement at the outbreak of the September 18th Incident and the January 28th Incident. I got very busy doing propaganda work for Hangzhou Student Association and had no time to attend the Bible class, but I didn't slacken my efforts in English studies.
有次课后她要回宿舍，我陪她走了一程。她说：“我知道你很忙，但我希望你不要把英语荒废掉。
One day, when after class I accompanied Miss Edgar on her way to her home, she said, “I know you're very busy, but I hope you keep your English from getting rusty.
对于一种第二国语言，你不用，便很容易忘掉。
A second language, if not often used, will soon be forgotten.
不过我也觉得你参加学生运动，是应该的。
However, I don't think it's wrong for you to take part in the student movement.
我只有为你祈祷上帝，降福于你。”
Let me pray to God for blessings on you!” 
她曾经希望我做个基督徒，但那时我已接受了一些新思想，因此认为并无必要，她也只能长叹一声，自责她的祈祷不诚，所以我还不是个基督徒。
She hoped I would become a Christian, but I, having embraced new ideas, chose to remain a non-convert. She felt regretful and blamed impiety on her own part for failing to convert me.
一九三二年她回国，我到码头送行，她含着眼泪对我说：我将天天给你祈祷，愿上帝降福于你。
In 1932, when she was leaving China for home, I went to the wharf to bid her farewell. She said to me with tears in her eyes, “I'll pray for you every day.
我和她一直通信到一九三六年，这以后我各地奔波，便断了音讯。
May the blessings of God be on you! ”Then we corresponded regularly until 1936 when I began to live an unsettled life.
但我始终怀念着她。
Nevertheless, I always cherished her memory.
一九八〇年我去美国，曾向浸礼会探询她的消息，他们给我去查，最后告诉我她已于一九四六年去世。
In 1980, on my visit to the United States, I contacted the American Baptist Church with inquiries about Miss Edgar. They told me, after checking up, that she passed away in 1946.
她是我第一个美国教师，但使我永远不忘的，是她对于我的一番情谊。
Miss Edgar was my first American teacher. Her friendly feelings towards me will always remain in my memory.
现在我老了，我总觉得我欠了她些什么，也许就是我不同意她的信仰吧！
Now that I'm old, I often feel I've treated her somewhat unfairly. Perhaps I shouldn't have kept myself aloof from her belief.
上海街头
Shanghai as I See It
◎ 吴冠中
Wu Guanzhong
我每次过上海，多半是匆匆三五天，只有很少几次是超过一星期的。
Whenever I passed through Shanghai, I would stay there for only three or four days, seldom more than a week.
像一个虽常见面但无深交的熟人，不很了解，而其音容笑貌却是难忘的。
So the city, like a person who is more of a nodding acquaintance than a close friend of mine, is still rather unfamiliar to me. But its look and voice are unforgettable.
上海是一个神秘的地方！
Shanghai is a mysterious place!
我在宜兴农村的童年时代，每见到上海人回乡，也总爱挤在人丛中听他们讲讲花花世界的见闻，夏天，他们穿着黑色的香云纱，
When I was a child living in the countryside of Yixing, I used to elbow my way into a big crowd so as to listen to someone lately returned from Shanghai chatting about things he had seen and heard in the dazzling city.
我以为香云纱就是上海人的标志。
To me, their summer wear of dark-coloured xiangyunsha was characteristic of a Shanghailander.
在上海做事的人显然比乡下人高贵多了，他们似乎很有钱，带回来的整筒饼干和美女月份牌就够令人羡慕了，
Evidently, those who had been working in Shanghai enjoyed a much higher status than their fellow villagers. They seemed to be quite rich. The tins of biscuits and wall calendars with pinup girls on them they had brought home were the envy of all country folks.
后来我才知道他们都是当女工、小工和保姆的，挣钱并不那么容易。
Later, I learned, however, that they had been earning money the hard way by becoming factory workers, old jobbers or housemaids.
和百分之九十九的乡亲们一样，我的父母也从未见过上海，虽然相距并不算远，但上海对他们永远是一个遥远的天国。
Like 99 percent of our fellow villagers, my parents had never been to Shanghai. Though living not remote from Shanghai, they had to regard it as an inaccessible paradise on earth.
近几年我每到北站候车，总听到地道的乡音，年迈的乡亲们常来上海观光了，他们的子女在工厂、大学及科研单位工作，他们有福气了。
In recent years, often in the waiting room of Shanghai Northern Railway Station, I have overheard some travelers speaking with a pure accent of my native place. They are apparently elderly villagers from my home town who, thanks to their children working in local factories, universities or research institutes, can now well afford to visit the city on sight-seeing tours.
外滩是大上海的面貌特征吧，
The Bund is a marked feature of Greater Shanghai.
南京路一带的高楼大厦曾是上海人向乡下佬描述的骄傲。
Shanghailanders used to describe to country folks with pride how Nanjing Road is lined with high-rises.
后来当我在伦敦过了一个暑假，发现那文艺复兴时代式样的古代楼房、那狭窄的街道，与南京路一带何其相似！
Later, while I was in London for a summer vacation, I noticed the remarkable resemblance between some of the narrow streets there with their renaissance-style ancient buildings and Nanjing Road.
不是伦敦像南京路，而是按照伦敦的某些模式捏造了南京路，
But I would rather say that it is Nanjing Road that has been modelled after London.
让人们回忆上海滩形成的史迹吧！
Well, let's review the history of Shanghai!
然而南京路还是有自己的特色的：人多。
Nevertheless, Nanjing Road has a characteristic of its own, that is, street congestion.
这可与北京的王府井争冠军，争世界冠军去！
In this respect, it can vie with Wangfujing of Beijing for championship, or world championship.
有人说上海人滑头，有人说上海人聪明灵活，我同意后一种看法。
Some say Shanghailanders are shrewd, some say they are smart. I agree with the latter.
从饮食烹调到糖果点心，从轻工产品到服装样式，都体现了聪明灵活。
The delicacies they cook and the sweets and pastries they make, as well as their light industry products and dress fashions, all speak well for their cleverness.
最近我看到上海一家毛纺厂生产的虎皮腈纶毯，很美，虎虎有生气，是一件艺术品，在众多老式呆板花色的毛毯中，它应被评为毯中之王，
Recently I was very much struck by the robust beauty of an acrylic blanket made in imitation of tiger skin, which was the product of a Shanghai Woolen Mill. It was a real work of art standing head and shoulders above other blankets with old-fashioned dull patterns and colours.
我希望接着出现乱真的豹皮毛毯！
I hope they will follow up with blankets patterned to perfection on leopard skin.
我也见过滑头的上海人，白相人。
Shanghai is not without its sly fellows or even rogues of course.
我也曾以为上海人吃不了苦。
And I used to presume that Shanghailanders as a whole are not used to hardship and toil.
然而我在井冈山中、在西双版纳的橡胶林中，在新疆阿尔太的边境，遇到过不少刻苦耐劳的青年人，只当他们暴露了“阿拉，阿拉”之后，才知原来是上海人。
But I have come across a great many hardworking youth hailing from Shanghai in the Jinggang Mountains, on the rubber plantations of Xi-shuang-ban-na, or in Altai on the frontier of Xinjiang. It was not until they revealed their Shanghai accent that I knew where they were from.
三十年代的上海高楼大厦，与香港差不多，此后高楼没有再生高楼，如今比不上香港了，也比不上北京了，
In the thirties, Shanghai used to compare well with Hong Kong for skyscrapers and high-rises. But later, when it ceased to erect more, it began to lag behind Hong Kong and even Beijing.
在上海的我的老师和同学仍大都住在拥挤不堪的里弄里，仍可体验产生三十年代文学的环境。
Most of my former teachers and schoolmates there are still living in the close quarters of lanes and alleys, experiencing the same environment that had produced literature of the thirties.
我去年十月下旬经上海，出站时遇大雨，
In the latter part of last October, when I made a stopover in Shanghai, I happened to be caught by a heavy rain outside the railway station.
提着行李包，撑着雨伞排进等出租汽车的长队，没希望，转入排三轮的长队，也没希望，暂找个避雨的立足之地，没有，
I joined a long queue for taxis with luggage and umbrella in hand, but to no avail. I joined another long queue for pedicabs, but also to no avail. Then I tried to seek a shelter from the rain, but also to no avail.
前后左右能容人的只是马路，大雨在横扫所有的马路。“
All travelers had to stand in the open totally exposed to the storm. 
“鬼上海！”旅客们骂了。
"Damnable Shanghai!" they cursed.
“鬼上海”！我也跟着骂。
"Damnable Shanghai!" I echoed.
我未曾碰到过上海的大阔佬，只在《子夜》、《陈毅市长》等文艺作品中见到资本家的豪华排场，见到老爷、太太、少爷、小姐们的神情风致。
I've never come to know any wealthy guys in Shanghai except in the novel Midnight, the stage play Mayor Chen Yi, etc. , depicting moneyed capitalists and their families leading a lavish life.
最近一次到上海，见到许多大饭店的门口排开成群西装革履、烫头发擦口红的青年男女，有的胸前佩戴着大红花，他们在等待频频到来的小汽车里的贵客。
On my last trip to Shanghai, I happened to see many young men dressed in Western suits and leather shoes and women with perm and rouged lips, some sporting big red flowers on their chests, lining up in front of many luxury hotels to await the arrival of cars carrying distinguished guests.
满是一番灯红酒绿夜都市的气氛，这不真有点像少爷小姐们的阔绰气派了吗！
Wasn't that a night scene of colour and bustle typical of a metropolis—a scene of children from rich families flaunting an ostentatious life-style?
我好奇了，人们告诉我这个北京来的乡下佬，说这是结婚。
While I was utterly puzzled, people told me that I was too much of a country bumpkin to recognize a wedding ceremony.
那迎宾的队伍从大门口一直引至宴会厅，而且几家大饭店的喜宴日程已登记到八三年很晚的月份了。
The guest-welcoming line extended all the way from the gate to the banquet hall. And several big hotels had already been booked up for wedding banquets till the end of 1983.
任伯年和吴昌硕鬻画于上海。
Ren Bonian and Wu Changshuo used to sell their paintings for a living in Shanghai.
刘海粟先生在上海创办了中国第一所现代化雏形的美术学校。
And Liu Haisu established China's first school of fine arts in the city.
今天许多重要省市都有了较完整的美术学院，而上海没有，但上海拥有众多的画家，人才济济。
Today, many provinces and cities in China boast their own standardized art schools with the exception of Shanghai although it is home to a galaxy of painters.
凡是重要的美展，国内和国外的，北京展完便到上海，上海的展厅与上海之不相称，一如那个火车站。
All art exhibitions, foreign or Chinese, were first held in Beijing and next in Shanghai. But the exhibition hall in Shanghai, like its railway station, doesn't go well with the status of such a metropolis.
没有吸引我的美术活动，这大概是我每过上海多半只是匆匆三五天的原由吧！
It therefore holds little attraction for me as a painter. That probably accounts for the fact that every time in passing through the city, I usually stayed there for only three or four days!
绿衣姑娘
The Green-Uniformed Girl
◎ 吴冠中
◎ Wu Guanzhong
我住的会仙（贤）堂，曾是清末北京鼎鼎有名的大饭馆。
The place where I live, known as Hui-xian-tang, used to be a well-known big restaurant in Beijing during the last years of the Qing Dynasty.
想当年，画栋雕窗，面临什刹海，楼上楼下，文士雅集，商贾交易，歌女卖唱，多少豪富人家在此举办过婚嫁喜筵！
With painted pillars and carved windows, it was then a splendid mansion facing the Shi-sha-hai Lake. The rooms downstairs and upstairs would be packed with literati enjoying a get-together, tradesmen negotiating business affairs, and singsong girls performing for a living. And it also witnessed numerous wedding feasts held by rich and influential families. 
梁园日暮，如今已成为六、七个单位数十户职工宿舍的大杂院，院内地震棚歪歪倒倒，小径曲折，乱石成堆，房檐碰头，不堪回首。
But now, like a run-down royal palace, it has become a residential compound occupied by dozens of households with some of its members working at six or seven different organizations. Piled high with rubble here and there, the whole place is in a terrible mess with makeshift shacks, a narrow path running zigzag across it, and eaves so low as to hit the head of passers-by. 
我住的是最后院的最后两间平房，后墙外是一条小小的胡同，后墙窗高，在室内看不到胡同，但可听到胡同里磨剪刀的叫唤声、汽车喇叭声、妇女吵嚷声......
I live in a one-story two-room house in the rearmost backyard backed by a small lane. As the window is high up in the wall, I can't see anything in the lane, but I can hear a lot of noises therefrom, such as the cries of itinerant knife sharpeners, the blaring of car horns and the shouting and screaming of women.
这些混杂的声音不时搅乱我的构思。
The mixed noises often disturb me in my work. 
但终于我发现其中有一种声音是我所喜欢的：“信——，拿报纸——”显然，那是一位姑娘清脆嘹亮的声音，她将尾音拉得长长的，那音浪在胡同里家家庭院的上空久久荡漾，由我听来，那是音乐！
Exceptionally, however, I find one voice so very pleasing. “Letters, and newspapers!—” It's the clear, ringing voice of a young girl, uttered with a much prolonged last syllabic sound. It seems to keep echoing over the courtyard of each and every household in the neighborhood. To me, it's music!
幸运的人们在等待喜讯，分离的亲人在盼望音信。
People who have fortune on their side will look forward to good news; people separated from their dear ones will long to hear from them.
人，总生活在希望中，个人的命运，国家的前景，世界的风云......
Man always lives in hopes. The personal fate, the prospects of the nation, the fast changing world—in short, all variables and uncertainties in the future—are causing great concern. 
一切未来的和未知的在引人关注，谁知明天将发生什么事情！
Nobody knows what tomorrow has got in store for us! 
邮递员，她送来了未知的情况和消息，有情和无情的真实！
The postgirl delivers to us news about the unknown future and about the real state of affairs, pleasant or unpleasant.
犹如别人，我天天盼信，墙外胡同里那位邮递员姑娘的呼喊多亲切啊，日子久了，似乎我早已熟识她。
Like others, I'm eager for mail every day. How heart-warming is the cry of the postgirl coming from the small lane back of my house! As the years go by, I seem to have known her for a long time.
后来，我走在偏僻的小街小胡同里，便经常不自觉地留心那些骑着绿色自行车，穿着绿色制服的邮递员姑娘们，不知哪一位是我天天听着她呼喊的老相识，她们都一样的美！
Later, whenever I took a stroll along the secluded small lane, I would unconsciously turn my eyes towards the green-uniformed postgirls riding green-coloured bikes, wondering which of them was the one whose familiar voice I had heard calling every day. These girls were equally beautiful!
我青年时期曾害目疾，住在昆明一家医院里动手术，双目全被包扎了，一切生活听护士安排照料。
When I was young, I once entered a hospital in Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, to undergo an operation for eye trouble. With both eyes bandaged, I left myself entirely in the care of a nurse.
每日早晚，一位护士姑娘清亮柔和的声音叫我：“考体温（测体温）。”
Every morning and evening, I would hear her calling me in a clear, soft voice, “Let's take your temperature! ”Gradually I became familiar with the voice. 
我渐渐熟悉这声音，感激这声音，爱这声音，偷偷地爱她了，虽然全不知她是什么模样啊！
I felt grateful and well disposed towards it. In short, I fell in love with her on the sly though I didn't even know what she looked like.
当我病愈打开双目，想在许多护士姑娘中发现谁是她，但匆匆要出院了，偏偏没有再听到她的声音，我从此同样敬爱都穿着白衣服的她们！
The day when I had my eye bandage removed after recovery, I was eager to find out from among the many nurses the one who had attended to me, but in vain because leaving in a flurry, I failed to hear her voice again. Nevertheless, I've since held all white-robed nurses in high esteem.
白衣战士，洁白是美吧！
O white-robed nurses, how beautiful is the spotlessly white colour!
绿衣的邮递员，和平的绿色也是美啊！
O green-uniformed postmen and postwomen, how beautiful is the green colour signifying peace!
一个下雪天，我正在家作画，突然前院一个姑娘的熟悉的声音在遥唤：“吴冠中，打戳——”邮递员来了！
One snowy afternoon, when I was doing painting, I heard the familiar voice of a girl calling at a distance from the front courtyard, “Wu Guanzhong, your seal, please—!” Yes, that was the postgirl!
我放下画具，急急忙忙地从地震棚的夹道间冲到前院去。
I put down the painting brush and hurried to the front courtyard through the passageway between the makeshift shacks.
待我赶到大门口，看到邮递姑娘的绿色自行车上挂着一个不小的邮袋，邮袋里还装着满满的信件。
Arriving at the gate, I saw hanging on the postgirl's green bike a big postbag bulging with mail.
她如何能离开邮袋呢！
Of course that was the last thing for her to leave behind under any circumstances.
我才明白她为什么不能亲自送信入院，只能像草原牧羊女一般用高嗓门遥遥呼唤！
I immediately realized why, instead of going to the rearmost courtyard to deliver the letter to me in person, she had had to call me from afar at the top of her voice like a shepherdess on the grassland.
天寒，她穿着厚厚的棉袄，套不上绿色的使者之衣了，宽大的围脖裹住了头，遮掩了一半脸面，我看不清她的真面目。
It was cold and she was dressed in a cumbersome cotton-padded jacket, which was so big that she could no longer wear the green uniform over it. The big scarf round her neck concealed half of her face so that I was unable to see what she really looked like. 
待交过信，她没有意识到我还想说话，便敏捷地跨上了自行车，衬着耀眼的白雪，人和车的颜色显得格外深暗，她迅速飞去的背影仿佛是一只展翅的乌鸦，不，是喜鹊！
Not knowing that I was eager to talk a few words to her, she quickly mounted her bike and left. Against the blinding white snow, both rider and bike looked especially dark. Her quickly receding figure brought to mind a raven on the wing, or rather a magpie!
蟋蟀
The Cricket
◎ 吴冠中
◎ Wu Guanzhong
鬓发斑斑，仍总是忙碌，城中天天忙于无穷事，未有余闲品味童年捉蟋蟀的回忆。
Grey-templed as I'm, I still always keep myself occupied. Everyday I bustle about town having little time to indulge in pleasant reminiscences of how I used to catch crickets in my childhood.
然而居室里突然听到了蟋蟀的叫声，我和老伴都感惊喜，高楼里哪来的蟋蟀？
One day, however, my wife and I were pleasantly surprised by the sudden chirping of a cricket in our apartment. How did it get into this tall building?
那声音似乎发自厨房的一角，我想可能是老伴买蔬菜时挟带回来的。
As the sound seemed to come from a corner of our kitchen, I guessed it had probably come with the vegetables my wife bought from the food market.
星期天，小孙女小曲来家，吃晚饭的时候，蟋蟀又高叫起来，一声高于一声，清脆响亮，仿佛是鸣奏。
On Sunday, when our youngest granddaughter Xiao Qu was with us, the cricket started chirping again at supper time with a rising clear and loud sound like in a performance.
小曲高兴极了，饭也不吃了，要捉蟋蟀。
Xiao Qu was overjoyed and stopped eating as she was eager to catch the insect.
我找来手电，顺着叫声到厨房角落里拨开扫帚、残菜、剩羹、废纸、旧瓶......一直清理到自来水管道周围湿漉漉的水泥地面，果然一只肥大的蟋蟀伏在那里。
Torch in hand, I found my way to a corner of the kitchen by tracing the sound and then cleared away everything in the way, like brooms, discarded outer leaves of vegetables, leftovers, waste paper, used empty bottles, etc. until my eyes fell on a big cricket on the damp cement floor near a water pipe.
用手电照准它，它一动也不动，我轻易地将它捉住了。
It stayed still as I lit it up with the torch. So I got it easily.
全家欢腾起来，我将蟋蟀放进装颜料用的硬纸匣里，交给小曲。
The whole family was wild with joy. I put it into an empty colour-tube cardboard box and handed it to my granddaughter.
小曲说她要看着蟋蟀叫，她自己找了一个半透明的小塑料瓶，将蟋蟀装入瓶里，观赏这可怜的小俘虏团团转。
But she said she wanted to have it kept in a transparent container so that she could see it chirp. Then she found a plastic bottle and happily watched the pitiable little captive therein moving about in panic.
她奶奶怕蟋蟀窒死，用剪刀将塑料瓶戮了几个透气的小洞。
Her grandma, however, fearing that the cricket might suffocate, punctured a few holes in the plastic bottle with a pair of scissors.
小曲将蟋蟀带回去了。
Xiao Qu left for home with the cricket.
夜晚屋里特别寂静，孩子们也都关门睡觉了，我和老伴两人在自己卧室里感到分外孤独。似乎是前所未有的孤独。
That night a complete silence reigned in our house. Our children had already gone to bed behind the closed door. My wife and I felt unusually lonesome in our bedroom.
老伴埋怨我不该捉掉了蟋蟀！
She blamed it on my having got rid of the cricket.
夜半，蟋蟀又叫起来了，呵，原来不止一只！
Late at night, we heard the chirping of a cricket again. Ah, that must be another one!
我和老伴都高兴得不想入睡了。
My wife and I were too excited to sleep.
我们不由得回忆起我们当年住在农村老家的日子：古老窗外的星空、萤火虫星星的亮光、夜莺的歌喉、自然总有蟋蟀的伴奏......
We were lost in memories of our child life in our rural home with the starry sky outside the antique window, the glowing of fireflies, the warbling of nightingales, the ever-present accompaniment of crickets' chirrups...
我们的谈话没完没了：父老、乡亲、谁家和谁家的孩子......
We chatted on and on recalling elders at home, fellow villagers, kids in the neighbourhood, and so on and so forth. 
这一夜我们似乎远离了北京。
All the while, we were transported by nostalgia to our old home remote from Beijing.
愿蟋蟀就在我家定居吧！
May the cricket settle down permanently under our roof!
生命
Life
◎ 何为
◎ He Wei
如果回归自然，各有不同的方式，后人总是尊重前辈的人生最后一次选择。
There are various ways of returning to nature, but people generally respect the last wish made by their parents towards their journey's end.
一位朋友偶然讲起一件事，有如一篇小小说，听者动容。
A friend of mine incidentally related to me the following occurrence which, like a little story, is very touching:
在新开发的丛林里，一条蜿蜒的小径上，一个衣着素色的女人踽踽独行，径直走向林子里的一棵树。
In a newly opened-up forest, a quietly dressed woman walked all by herself on a winding path straight towards one of the trees.
这里许多树大小参差不一，有的移植不久，不过都长得很快。在一个时期内，都挺直有神。新生的树叶嫩绿有生机。
There were many trees of varying sizes, and some had just been transplanted, but all were shooting up fast, standing straight and stout and covered with light green young leaves.
当然，有人专门护理这些纪念树。
Evidently, some people had been put in charge of these memorial trees.
不知多少年，这个女人总是带着一束鲜花默默地置于树根旁，然后仰起头来，对着树身凝视，翕动着她独有的小小嘴唇，既像独语，又像倾诉。
As she had been doing for we don't know how many years, the woman stood silently beside the tree with a bunch of fresh flowers in her hand. She raised her head to fix her eyes on the tree and kept moving her unique small lips as if she were soliloquizing or sharing her innermost feelings with someone.
她退后一步，打量她这树高了多少，细心地除去树下斑斑驳驳的落叶，向这棵移植多年的树倾身拥抱，亲了一下，轻轻摩挲树皮的皱纹，如同面对一个有生命的躯体。
She took a step back to assess how much the tree had grown in height and softly removed the mottled fallen leaves under it. She bent forward to hug and kiss the tree that had been transplanted many years before, and gently stroked its wrinkled bark as if it were something alive.
不久，她依依不舍地转身离去，消失在暮色渐浓的秋天最后一抹余晖里。
Then she reluctantly turned round and left, vanishing into the last rays of an autumn day in the deepening dusk.
一阵秋风吹过，树叶沙沙地响动，仿佛隐秘的私语。女人顿时回过身来，惟有她才能听懂私语的全部含意。
At a sudden gust of the autumn wind, the tree rustled like it was whispering secretly and the woman, being the only person capable of understanding the full implications of the whisper, immediately turned round.
于是喃喃自语向大树告诉。含着泪，走向她的归途。
Then, after mumbling a few words to the tree, she said goodbye to it and set out on her way home with tears in her eyes.
年复一年，小径上的女人孤独的背影，显得越来越苍老了。
As the years went by, the woman, a regular solitary visitor on the path, became older and older.
若干年后，这棵树长得更高大了，树冠缀满葱茏的树叶。
Several years later, the tree became even taller and was crowned with verdant foliage.
它屹立在这片土地上，风吹来，满树充满生命的绿色更繁茂了。
It stood erect and became more and more luxuriantly green in the wind.
它对着苍穹，仰望太阳、月亮和星星的运行，与大自然亲密无间连成一片。
It looked up at the firmament to watch the motions of the sun, moon and stars and thus merged itself with Mother Nature.
又过了些时候，靠近大树旁出现了一棵新移植的小树。
Another period of time afterwards, there appeared close to it a newly transplanted small tree.
小树很壮硕，也很安静。
It was robust and quiet.
随着岁月递增，年长日久，大树和小树埋在泥土下的根茎错节，相互交织。
With the passage of time, the roots of the two trees had become twined together. 
两棵树下各埋着一个精致的小木盒，木盒里的骨灰，逐渐化为树根下的有机肥，融入树身内。
They each had a delicate small wooden cinerary casket buried underneath them. The ashes in the caskets had gradually turned into organic fertilizer passing into the trees trunks by way of the roots.
两个老者相继以这样的方式回归自然，在大自然的怀抱中，生命得以延续。
The two elderly persons had successively chosen the same way of returning to nature so as to have life prolonged in the bosom of nature.
树上每一片小绿叶都孕含着绿色的希望。
Each tender leaf in the trees was pregnant with green hope.
这是真的，是一首歌颂树葬的诗篇。
It's a true story. It's a poem singing the praises of tree burial.
不用问他们是谁，是谁，就是谁。
No need to identify the two elderly people though. It could be any person.
最后一圈
The Last Lap
◎ 何为
◎ He Wei
70年代后期，收阅萧乾同志的一封信，他说“要跑好人生的最后一圈”。
Back in the late 1970s, I received a letter from Xiao Qian, in which he said, “I shouldn't slacken off on this last lap of my life." 
当时怦然有所触动，一直记得这句话。
I was deeply touched and have remembered his words to this day.
年前读他的《八十自省》一文，自谓“这一圈跑了大半，离终点不会太远了”。
Last year, when I read his I'm an Octogenarian, in which he said, “Having covered more than half of this lap, I'm now close to the finishing line, ” 
更是令人感慨万千，不胜惆怅。
I was even more touched and seized with a feeling of sadness.
算一下他的最后一圈，长达十余年，很长，也很有成绩，殊堪庆幸。
To my great delight, however, his last lap, having lasted, as I figure out, for more than a decade now, is very long and fruitful.
以他的坚毅顽强和旷达，其“终点”线设在21世纪，是完全可预期的。
Judging by his strong will and broad-mindedness, the finishing line should undoubtedly be somewhere in the coming 21st century.
从人生道路上的最后一圈，想到马拉松超长距赛跑。
Meanwhile, the last lap of human life has reminded me of the marathon race.
古希腊人在马拉松地方战胜敌军，一名士兵为了迅速传递捷报，一鼓作气跑毕四万二千一百九十五米的路程，到了雅典后就力竭死去。
According to legend, when the ancient Greeks defeated the invaders at Marathon, a Greek soldier is believed to have run non-stop from Marathon to Athens, a distance of 42, 195 metres, to announce the Athenian victory at the battlefield. Unfortunately, after making the announcement, he dropped dead from exhaustion. 
他带去胜利的信息，他又是长途跋涉的胜利者，后人将这一距离的竞赛项目称为马拉松赛跑，作为纪念。
He was not only the courier carrying news of the Greek victory, but also the winner of the record journey. Now the long-distance foot race of the same distance has been named after the Battle of Marathon to commemorate the legendary feat of the Greek soldier.
马拉松赛跑是考验人的意志和力量的竞技运动。
The marathon race is a sports event testing man's endurance and strength.
长跑者在同一起跑线出发。一眼望不到尽头的跑道上，强者与弱者的差距逐渐拉开。
Runners start from the same starting line and on the seemingly endless track the gap gradually widens between the strong and the weak.
最后一圈是拼搏的时刻。
The last lap always witnesses the runners going all out to win success.
第一个到达终点的优胜者，迎来阵阵掌声和热烈欢呼，屏幕上闪耀着他创造的纪录。
The first to reach the finishing line is showered with warm applause and acclamation while the new record he or she has created is flashing across the screen.
然而，跑道上也有这样的场面：拖着疲惫不堪的双腿，苦苦挣扎着，摇摇欲坠几乎昏厥的身子，终于奋力冲过封锁线，那是多么激动人心的时刻！
Nevertheless, we also see this moving scene: An exhausted runner, dragging a pair of weary feet and staggering as though about to fall into a faint, barely manages at long last to hit the finishing line after a desperate struggle. Oh, what a stirring moment! 
纵或是最后一名，也是一位胜利者，同样赢得热情的鼓励和赞许的掌声。
He may be the last, yet he is also a winner. He likewise deserves spectators' warm encouragement and approving applause.
人们为长跑者坚韧不拔的精神深深感动了。
People are deeply moved by his tenacity.
人的一生好比马拉松赛跑。
Human life can be likened to the marathon race.
人人都有最后一圈，这一圈通常属于人生道路漫长的老人。
All people, especially the aged who have already seen much of life, have the last lap.
七老八十的人，穿过艰难的世途，穿过芸芸众生，穿过重重障碍，于是到了人生的最后一圈。
Septuagenarians and octogenarians are on the last lap of their lives after experiencing the twists and turns of life's journey, meeting human beings of all descriptions and going through one obstacle after another.
这一圈路程有长有短，跑得有快有慢。
The last lap may be long or short; the runners may be fast or slow.
有的人稳健有力，从容不迫；有的人歪歪扭扭，步子不正；有的人拖拖沓沓，蹒跚不前。
Some may run with firm and steady steps and self-possession; some may run very unsteadily and out of step; some may be sluggish and run with faltering steps.
也有跑入歪道的人，或跑不快还要挡道的人，或不按竞赛规则乱跑的人，都是注定要失败的。
What is worse, some may resort to dishonest practices; some, being slow themselves, may purposely stand in the way of others; some may run without adhering to the rules of the competition. Such people are doomed to failure.
谁能跑好这最后一圈，谁就是胜利者。
Whoever acquits himself well on the last lap is a winner.
书房
My Study
◎ 何为
◎ He Wei
书房，是读书人心目中的一个私人领地，一个精神家园，一个智慧的世界。
The study is to a scholar his private domain, his spiritual home and his intellectual world. 
到过几位朋友家的书房，尽管大小各不相同，陈设各异，但四壁书橱架上，层层叠叠的书籍，或排成整齐的行列，或纵横交错如阡陌丛林，满屋子到处是书，则大体相同。
I've been to the studies of several friends. Though of different sizes and with different furnishings, they are nevertheless about the same in boasting a roomful of books. Books shelved in bookcases lining the four walls. Books either piled up one upon another, or displayed in neat rows, or laid out in disorder like fields with crisscross footpaths or a jungle.
新时期以来，各种多卷本全套硬面精装的文集，形形色色的选集，足以令书房生辉。
In recent years, the appearance of various multivolume collected works in de luxe editions as well as selected works of every description has added to the splendour of a study.
其间不乏名著佳作，可作为文化积累，但也难免混杂一些文化垃圾。
Among them there is no lack of great classics and master writings. On the other hand, some trash is inevitably mixed with them too.
当然，这些都无碍于书房主人坐拥书城之乐。
But that doesn't hinder the owner of the study from enjoying the company of his library.
书房永远是令人向往的去处。
A study is always a place of enormous appeal to us.
我从事笔耕数十年，从来没有一间自己的书房，一间独立的、完整的、名副其实的书房。
I've been engaged in writing for several decades, but I've never had a study of my own—a study that is independent, intact and true to its name, that is.
我多次迁居，从大城市直至外省人烟稀少的小山村。
I've moved many times, once even away from a big city to a remote small mountain village in another province.
每次搬家时，惟有书籍最累人，也最难舍弃。
Whenever I moved, my books, cumbersome as they were, turned out to be the last thing for me to part with.
我爱书，说不上藏书丰富，日积月累倒也可观，几经迁移，不但没有损失，反而日益增多，因为居处的局限，每每有书满为患之感。
I'm a bibliophile. My collection of books is far from being a big private library, but it keeps growing from day to day. Several times of house moving did not disperse my collection. On the contrary, it has become larger with each passing day until my small dwelling is overcrowded with them. 
现在我的卧室就是书房，群书延伸到小卫生间的大书架上，无法腾出一室作书房。
Now the shelves of books in my study-cum-bedroom extend as far as the tiny toilet. No room is available to serve specifically as a study.
然而，在我的文学生涯中，一度也有一间自己的书房。
However, in the course of my career as a writer, I did once own a study, or, to be exact, a storeroom turned study.
所谓书房，其实是一间贮藏室。
I was then living in an old house built at the turn of the century.
那幢在本世纪初期落成的陈旧宅第，开间很大，楼下一间屋子就可作为街道办的托儿所。
It was quite roomy, so much so that the ground floor served even as a neighbourhood nursery.
我的一家住在三楼一大间，按今日标准，至少可分成三间，真是大而无当。
I and family lived in a room on the third floor, which was really big but impractical because, according to today's standard, it could have been divided into at least three rooms.
不过房门外，紧靠楼梯，有一间贮藏室，倒是极为难得的。门一关，可与全家的生活区完全隔绝，避免尚在幼年的孩子们往来干扰。
Fortunately, close to the staircase just outside my room, there was a storeroom, which I regarded as something of great rarity to me because sitting inside it behind the closed door I could cut myself off from my family and work without any disturbance from my small kids.
这贮藏室于是成了我一生中惟一的书房，也许称之为小作坊更为贴切。
The storeroom was the only study I've ever had in my life. Perhaps it could be aptly called a workshop.
狭长逼仄的一小间，北窗下靠墙置一旧书桌，进门处兀立两只叠起来的玻璃书柜，都是原先住户废弃的家具。
It was long, narrow and small. An old desk stood against a wall under the northern window. Two piled-up glass bookcases rose erect near the entrance. They were the furniture abandoned by a former resident.
除了窗下书桌前可容纳我的一把旧藤椅，就没有多余的空间了。
There was no room for anything else besides my old cane chair placed before the desk under the window.
不过，这样的一间书房，一个人躲在里面写作，思想很集中。
However, enjoying the privacy of a so-called study like this, I could do writing with high concentration.
我利用一切节假日、下班后的全部业余时间，独处斗室，创作的思维和想象空间都很广阔。
All festivals and holidays as well as all after-hours spare time would find me confined in solitude to the tiny room to experience the delight of giving free rein to my literary thought and imagination.
五十年代的上海寒冬腊月，气候比现在冷得多。
In the fifties, Shanghai was much colder in winter than now.
寒夜，窗上玻璃结满冰凌，呵气如雾。
The window panes would ice up and one's breath would freeze in the cold air.
我拉上窗帘，以炭盆烤火取暖，让身边的小水壶在炭火上嘶嘶作响，伴随我逐渐投入创作境界。
I would, with the window curtains drawn together, warm myself by a charcoal brazier over which a small kettle was sizzling away, and gradually move into the best state of readiness for creative writing.
室内四壁都伸手可及，我在墙钉上挂着几条绳索，以便挂上大小纸片。
On the four walls, which I could easily reach by holding out my hand, I had several strings with scraps of paper hung on them stretched between nails.
纸片上有创作素材的零星记录，有词海语林偶得的一鳞半爪，也有已成篇尚待修改的原稿。
On these scraps of paper, I kept jottings of fragmentary materials for creative work, some linguistic gems and my original manuscripts awaiting revision.
短短几年，我在这作坊里，写了不少长短文章，其中有些小文，至今还受到读者的青睐，这是我想不到的。
In this workshop, I turned out in a few years a large number of articles, both long and short, and, to my great surprise, some of the short essays I then wrote are today still to the liking of the reading public.
我很想念那间小书房。
How I cherish the memory of the small study!
有几次偕孩子们路过其地，孩子们如今都到了中年，每次我总要指点方位，告诉他们，那几乎不复可辨的三层楼上，过去是我们一家住过的地方。
Whenever I passed by the former residence with my children, who have now reached middle age, I never failed to show them the location of our old home and tell them that the third floor of the building which had changed beyond recognition had once been our home.
昨日偶经该处，发现旧屋原址上屹立着耸天高楼，旧居了无痕迹。
Yesterday, when passing by the same place, I found that the old building was nowhere to be found and that a high-rise had been erected on its site.
我在夜色中频频回首仰望，怅然重温我的那个书房旧梦。
In the deepening dusk, I repeatedly turned round to look up at the towering structure and wistfully relived the old days I had spent in the small study.
美国编辑的基本常识
Ill-Informed US Newsmen
◎ 董鼎山
◎ Dong Dingshan
《纽约时报》一位编辑日前来了电话，叫我将一篇文章中的“延安窑洞”（The Yanan caves）一词解释一下。
The other day, an editor of The New York Times called me to inquire about “the Yan'an caves”, a phrase he had come across in one of my articles.
这个电话立时引起我一阵感慨：美国编辑的年轻（及其对时事历史知识的简陋）反映了我自己的老年。
It struck me immediately, for the young American editor with his ignorance of current affairs and historical events was a reflection of my own old age.
我的文中所讨论的是市上一本新出版的埃德加·斯诺传记。
The article I had written was about a recently published biography of Edgar Snow.
我曾指出，斯诺的《西行漫记》在1938年出版时，曾驱动了无数理想主义的知识青年前往“延安窑洞朝圣”（Make pilgrimages to the Yanan caves），帮助了毛泽东革命的成功。
I pointed out therein that Snow's Red Star over China, published in 1938, served to spur innumerable aspiring young Chinese intellectuals to make pilgrimages to the Yan'an caves, thus contributing to the success of the Chinese revolution.
那位青年编辑的不解此词用意，令我憾惜那份大报资深老编辑的逐一消逝。
The young American editor's failure to understand the said phrase made me lament the fading out of elderly senior members on the editorial staff of the renowned newspaper.
美国新一代编辑对中国现代史的生疏并不是近年来的事。
That the new generation of American newsmen are unfamiliar with modern Chinese history is by no means something new.
十年之前，我替该报专论版（OP-ED page）写了一篇有关我初返祖国的经历。编辑打电话来问我文中“法租界”（French Concession）一词是什么意思。
Ten years ago, after I sent in an article for the OP-ED page of The New York Times recounting experiences of my first visit to my motherland, the editor phoned me to ask about the meaning of “the French Concession”.
我的解释不能说服他的犹疑。
My explanation, however, failed to bring him round.
他说读者不会了解，为了安全起见，他要把“法租界”改为“法侨区”（French Quarter），我勉强的同意。
He said readers had difficulty understanding it and therefore suggested, for safety's sake, “the French Quarter” as a substitute for “the French Concession”. I agreed, but with reluctance.
又有一次，该报书评周刊一篇讨论海伦·福斯特·斯诺的《我在中国的年头》的书评中把张学良称呼为“共党少帅”（The Communist Young Marshal）。
Another time, in the newspaper's weekly book review, an article on Helen Foster Snow's My China Years addressed Zhang Xueliang as “Communist Young Marshal.”
张学良怎是共产党？
How could he be a Communist?
我去信更正。他们把我的更正信发表。
So I wrote them to rectify the mistake and they had my letter published.
该报的认真态度是名闻世界的，但是编辑的缺乏常识是不是我们所可谅解？
The New York Times is world-famous for its conscientiousness, but a lack of general knowledge on the part of its editors is nevertheless unpardonable.
美国一般报刊当事者对中国情况（即使是现在，到处多的是“中国通”）的无知是相当普遍的。
Those in charge of the American press are often found ignorant of things in China although the country is said to abound in “China hands”.
例如他们常把中国人的姓氏名字前后倒置。
For instance, they often don't know how to put Chinese surnames and given names in the right order.
至于电视新闻广播员更是缺乏时事修养。
TV news broadcasters are even more ill-informed about the current affairs.
不只一次，我听到他们把“中华人民共和国”与“中华民国”混为一谈。
I've more than once found them mix up “the People's Republic of China” with “the Republic of China”.
当然，1949年以后出生的人现在也有四十岁了。
US editors born after 1949, the year when the People's Republic of China was founded, are now in their forties.
有的则根本不能体会上海在解放前的情况。
Some of them have little knowledge of what Shanghai was like in China's pre-liberation days.
有一个杂志编辑与我争论“外滩”一词的英文字。
One American editor got into a heated argument with me about the English equivalent of Waitan in Shanghai.
他不解我为何要用Bund（他说Bund对他而言，是战前美国一个仿德国纳粹团体的取名）。
He wondered why I should insist on using the word “Bund”, saying that as far as he knew, it referred exclusively to a pro-Nazi organization in the pre-war US.
殊不知英国经商者早已在印度殖民地用了这个字，后来用在上海的外滩，意谓“沿着江海的河堤”。
He didn't know that the word, first used by British merchants in India during its colonial days to mean “an embanked road along a waterfront”, was later also used to refer to Waitan in Shanghai.
这位编辑终把Bund改为Waterfront，把我所要想形容的昔年上海繁华的外滩，一改而予人以冷落零乱印象的“码头”，完全失却了原意。
He finally chose “the Waterfront” in preference to “the Bund”, which was a misrepresentation giving the picture of a desolate and messy dock instead of the erstwhile thriving Shanghai Bund as I had intended to describe.
凡此种种，只不过表明新闻界也是后浪推前浪，老的退休，新的当家。在此情形下，我们这些上了年纪的撰稿者好似失去了知音。
Evidently the young have replaced the old to play a leading role in the US press, and ageing newspaper contributors like me seem to have lost, much to our regret, our understanding friends.
西欧的夏天
Summer in Western Europe
◎ 余光中
◎ Yu Guangzhong
旅客似乎是十分轻松的人，实际上却相当辛苦。
Light-hearted as he seems, a traveler is in fact under great stress.
旅客不用上班，却必须受时间的约束；
Though on vacation, he is nevertheless subject to the restraint of time. 
爱做什么就做什么，却必须受钱包的限制；
He can do whatever he likes on the trip, but he has to keep the expenditure within the limits of his pocket. 
爱去哪里就去哪里，却必须把几件行李蜗牛壳一般带在身上。
Wherever he goes, he has to take with him his cumbersome hand luggage.
旅客最可怕的噩梦，是钱和证件一起遗失，沦为来历不明的乞丐。
He faces the most horrible possibility of losing his money and credentials, which will reduce himself to a pauper of unknown background.
旅客最难把握的东西，便是气候。
And, besides, he can never be sure of the weather.
我现在就是这样的旅客。
That's what I'm like now.
从西班牙南端一直旅行到英国的北端，我经历了各样的气候，已经到了寒暑不侵的境界。
I've traveled all the way from the southern tip of Spain to the northern tip of England, experiencing a variety of climates until I've become apathetic to the elements.
此刻我正坐在中世纪古堡改装的旅馆里，为读者写稿，刚刚黎明，湿灰灰的云下是苏格兰中部荒莽的林木，林外是隐隐的青山。
I'm now sitting in a medieval castle turned hotel, writing an article for my readers. The day is just dawning. In Central Scotland, there lies under the grey wet clouds a wild wooded region, beyond which a green mountain stands faintly visible.
晓寒袭人，我坐在厚达尺许的石墙里，穿了一件毛衣，如果要走下回旋长梯像走下古堡之肠，去坡下的野径漫步寻幽，还得披上一件够厚的外套。
In the chilly air of the early morning, I have to be dressed in a woolen sweater while sitting on a stone wall one foot in thickness. But I need, in addition, an outer garment to keep me warm in case I come down the spiral staircase—the intestines of the castle—to take a stroll along an unfrequented path down the mountain slope in search of secluded places of quiet beauty.
从台湾的定义讲来，西欧几乎没有夏天。
By Taiwan standards, Western Europe has practically no summer at all.
昼蝉夜蛙，汗流浃背，是台湾的夏天。在西欧的大城，例如巴黎和伦敦，7月中旬走在阳光下，只觉得温暖舒适，并不出汗。
Summer in Taiwan is characterized by man's copious perspiration as well as daytime chirping of cicadas and nightly croaking of frogs while in big European cities, like Paris and London, the mid-July temperature is so moderate and comfortable that none sweat even in the sun.
西欧的旅馆和汽车，例皆不备冷气，因为就算天热，也是几天就过去了，值不得为避暑费事。
Hotels and cars in Western Europe are usually not air-conditioned because hot days are so few that people don't bother about having a cooler.
我在西班牙、法国、英国等地租车长途旅行，其车均无冷气，只能扇风。
The cars I hired for long-distance driving in Spain, France and England had fans, but no air-conditioning.
巴黎的所谓夏天，像是台北的深夜，早晚上街，凉风袭肘，一件毛衣还不足御寒。
The climate of Paris in summer is like that of Taipei at night. When you go out on an early morning or late evening, your woolen sweater will be hardly warm enough to keep out the nip in the air.
如果你走塞纳河边，风力加上水气，更需要一件风衣才行。
When you walk along the Seine, where it is even chillier due to the strong wind coupled with the cold waters, you have to wear a windcheater.
下午日暖，单衣便够，可是一走到楼影或树阴里，便嫌单衣太薄。
Then, all you need is just an unlined garment in the afternoon when it is warm, but you'll feel like putting on more when you are under the shade of buildings or trees.
地面如此，地下却又不同。
That's all for things aboveground. Now things underground.
巴黎的地车比纽约、伦敦、马德里的都好，却相当闷热，令人穿不住毛衣。
The subway of Paris is better than that of New York, London or Madrid, but it is so hot and stuffy that you feel like taking off your woolen sweater.
所以地上地下，穿穿脱脱，也颇麻烦。
Consequently you'll be annoyed by having to don or doff your clothes now and then, depending on whether you're aboveground or underground.
7月在巴黎的街上，行人的衣装，从少女的背心短裤到老妪的厚大衣，四季都有。
In July, Parisians in the open are seen dressed in the clothes of all seasons, ranging from young girls' vests and short skirts to elderly women's thick overcoats. 
7月在巴黎，几乎天天都是晴天，有时一连数日碧空无云，入夜后天也不黑下来，只变得深洞洞的暗蓝。
In July, Paris has sunny weather almost every day. Sometimes the sky is blue and cloudless for days on end and, when night comes, it never turns pitch dark, but remains a deep blue.
巴黎附近无山，城中少见高楼，城北的蒙马特也只是一个矮丘，太阳要到九点半才落到地平线上，更显得昼长夜短，有用不完的下午。
There are no mountains in its vicinity and few high-rises in the city proper. Montmartre in the north of the city is a mere hillock. As the sun never sinks below the horizon until 9: 30 pm, the days seem even longer and the nights even shorter. And the afternoons seem to last endlessly. 
不过晴天也会突来霹雳：7月14日法国国庆那天上午，密特朗总统在香热里榭大道主持阅兵盛典，就忽来一阵大雨，淋得总统和军乐队狼狈不堪。
Nevertheless, sometimes a thunderbolt also comes from the clear sky. On the morning of July 14, French National Day, when President Mitterrand was presiding over the review of a massive military parade on Champs Elysées, it suddenly started raining in torrents. The President and the military band, caught in the downpour, found themselves in a very awkward situation. 
电视的观众看得见雨气之中，乐队长的指挥杖竟失手落地，连忙俯身拾起。
TV viewers even saw the bandmaster bend down quickly to pick up the baton he had dropped onto the ground in a flurry.
法国北部及中部地势平坦，一望无际，气候却有变化。
In Northern and Central France lie boundless level plains with varying climates.
巴黎北行一小时至卢昂，就觉得冷些；西南行二小时至罗瓦河中流，气候就暖得多，下午竟颇燠热，不过入夜就凉下来，星月异常皎洁。
Rouen, which is a one-hour ride to the north of Paris, is cooler while the central reaches of the Loire River, which is a two-hour ride to the southwest of Paris, is much warmer. The latter becomes very hot in the afternoon, but cooler at night with the bright moon and stars in the sky.
再往南行入西班牙，气候就变得干暖。
Down in Spain, the climate is arid and warm.
马德里在高台地的中央，七月的午间并不闷热，入夜甚至得穿毛衣。
Madrid is located in the center of a plateau. Its noontime temperature in July is not sultry, and you have to wear a woolen sweater towards the evening.
我在南部安达露西亚地区及阳光海岸（Costa del Sol）开车，一路又干又热，枯黄的草原，干燥的石堆，大地像一块烙饼，摊在酷蓝的天穹之下，路旁的草丛常因干燥而起火，势颇惊人。
In Southern Spain, when driving in the Andalucia region and along the Costa del Sol, I found everything dry and hot. The grass was turning yellow and the rocks were dry. The earth was like a pancake roasting under the deep blue firmament. Alarmingly, the roadside grass often started burning by itself.
可是那是干热，并不令人出汗，和台湾的湿闷不同。
Unlike Taiwan which is humid, Southern Spain is hot and dry and so people there don't sweat at all.
英国则趋于另一极端，显得阴湿，气温也低。
England is at the other extreme, being overcast and wet with a low temperature.
我在伦敦的河堤区住了三天，一直是阴天，下着间歇的毛毛雨。
It was gloomy all the time and kept drizzling intermittently during the three days when I stayed in the River Embankment area of London.
即使破晓时露一下朝暾，早餐后天色就阴沉下来了。
Sometimes the morning sun made its brief appearance at daybreak, but the sky turned overcast soon after breakfast.
与我存走过滑铁卢桥，7月的河风吹来，水气阴阴，令人打一个寒噤，把毛的翻领拉起。
While crossing Waterloo Bridge with Wocun against the July wind blowing from the River Thames, a nip in the air sent shivers down my spine, forcing me to turn up my fur collar.
我们开车北行，一路上经过塔尖如梦的牛津，城楼似幻的勒德洛（Ludlow），古桥野渡的蔡斯特（Chester），雨云始终罩在车顶，雨点在车窗上也未干过。
We drove up north through Oxford with its dreamy spires, Ludlow with its illusory old castles and Chester with its ancient bridge and solitary ferry crossing. Rain clouds continued to hang over our car and raindrops remained intact on its windows.
进入步布瑞亚的湖区之后，遍地江湖，满空云雨，偶见天边绽出一角薄蓝，立刻便有更多的灰云挟雨遮掩过来。
After entering the Lake District, Cumbria, we found rivers and lakes everywhere and the sky full of rain clouds. Occasionally a speck of light blue would appear over the horizon only to be soon blotted out by dark grey rain clouds.
真要怪华兹华斯的诗魂小气，不肯让我一窥他诗中的晴美湖光。
I could not help complaining against Wordsworth for grudging me a sunny scene of the beautiful Lakeland as described in his poems.
在我一夕投宿的鹰头（Hawkshead）小店栈楼窗望出去，沿湖一带，树树含雨，山山带云，很想告诉格拉斯米教堂墓地里的诗翁，我国古代有一片云梦大泽，也出过一位水气逼人的诗宗。
In Hawkshead, I put up for one night at a small inn. Looking out of its window, I saw all trees around the lakes wet with rain and all mountains shrouded by clouds. How I longed to tell the great poet lying in Grasmere Churchyard that in ancient China there was also a great poet domiciled in a region of rivers and lakes!
多一只碟子
One Saucer More
◎ 金圣华
◎ Jin Shenghua
从朋友口中，听到一则轶事。
I've been told the following anecdote by a friend of mine:
电子学教授陈之藩当年自美国来香港中文大学履新，临行之前，与夫人在家中整理行装。
When Chen Chih-fan, professor of electronics, was about to leave the U. S. for Hong Kong to take up his new post at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he did packing at home with his wife.
陈教授夫妇有一套精美的茶具，收拾装箱时，一不小心，打破了一只茶杯。
They owned a beautiful tea set, but while packing up, they had one of the cups broken through carelessness.
一般人的反应，一定是感到十分心疼，好端端的成套茶具，打破一只杯，如何去配？
Ordinary people would have got very upset over it, as it was always troublesome to replace the broken cup to complete the set.
谁知陈教授的反应却不然，他莞尔一笑，坦然说道：“真不错，又多了一只碟子！”
Professor Chen, however, reacted to it differently. He said calmly with a smile, “Wow! Now we've got one saucer more!”
凡事从好处想，这种能耐，在现实生活中，确能使人受益无穷。
The attitude of always looking on the bright side of things will definitely be of inestimable benefit to us in our real life.
陈之藩教授不但是位杰出的科学家，也是位了不起的散文家，他的一些散文集，清新隽永，当年曾使我折服不已。
Professor Chen has distinguished himself both as a scientist and an essayist. His prose writings, which have been published in several collections, are known for their fresh and expressive style.
如今回想起来，令我惊叹的，不仅仅是他那优美的文笔，而是字里行间流露出来的睿智与巧思。
I was struck with admiration when I first read them, and I remember how I marvelled then at the keen insight and wisdom displayed between the lines as well as his beautiful language.
人生不如意事常八九，这是一句老话，老得几乎令人不想再重复，可是生命的旅程，行行复行行，在漫长的旅途上，的确会遇上一重又一重的挫折。
Things seldom go one's way. That's a popular saying too old to warrant re-quoting. But, one will certainly meet with one setback after another on his life's long journey.
每当失意时，人总觉得别人为什么比自己幸运？别人生意兴隆、仕途平坦、财源广进、名成利就；自己为什么如老牛破车，踽踽独行在暮色四合的郊道上？
When frustrated, one is apt to wonder why the more fortunate can fare so well either in business or officialdom, making a pile or enjoying both fame and wealth, while he himself, like an old ox pulling a rickety cart, has to trudge all by himself on a country road thick with dusk.
果真如此吗？
Is that true?
杯中只有一半水，有人喜孜孜说：“好呀！还有半杯”，
Now take for example a cup half filled with water. Some, in the face of it, may exclaim with delight, “Great, the cup is half full!” 
有人愁眉苦脸：“哎呀！只剩下半杯了”，分别就在这里。
Some may grumble gloomily, “Too bad, the cup is half empty!” You see how the two kinds of people differ.
书与人
Books and Man
◎ 金圣华
◎ Jin Shenghua
有朋友在情场上轰轰烈烈的驰骋了一阵，终于累了，最后，收拾情心，悄悄退回书斋之中，终日与书本为伍。
A friend of mine, having been actively involved in the arena of love for some time, finally became weary of it and, containing himself, quietly retired to his study to spend time with books all day long.
再不听到他唉声叹气。
He was no longer heard sighing deeply.
只觉他心情平和，仿佛一切都豁然开朗，天地广阔了许多。
On the contrary, he now had a peaceful mind and felt everything was bright and clear and the world wide and open.
把自己的喜怒哀乐，完全寄托在另外一个人身上，原是一件十分危险的事。
It is very dangerous to let somebody be master of your sentiments, such as joy, anger, pleasure and sorrow.
对方喜则自己心花怒放，对方怒则自己心惊胆战。
For example, you are elated simply because the other party looks cheerful, you are jumpy simply because the other party looks put out.
对方的一笑一颦，完全控制着自己的情绪起落，这又何苦呢？
Consequently, you are completely at the mercy of the other party as regards your own mood. Is it worth it?
面对书本，则完全没有这种麻烦。
As to books, things are entirely different.
择书比择友简单得多。
It is much easier to choose a book than a friend.
不擅辞令、厌恶应酬的人，可以自由自在的徜徉于书林之中，游目四顾，俯拾皆友。
One who is poor at speech and shuns socializing will nevertheless feel like being surrounded by friends while sauntering freely in the midst of books.
看书，可以博览，可以细嚼。
Some books are to be read cursorily, and some are to be chewed and digested.
没有人会怪你喜新厌旧，也没有人要求你从一而终。
None will ever call you fickle-minded, and none will ever demand that you be constant in your affection.
你大可以从一本换到另一本，喜爱的书，不妨一读再读。不耐看的书，又可随手抛下，谁也不会因此而伤心失望。
You can go from one book to another. And you can read your favourite book over and over again. When you lay aside the book you dislike, none will ever feel hurt or disappointed.
人际关系错综复杂，那“书际关系”呢？
While interpersonal relations are most complicated, what about your relations with books?
只要花点时间去了解，再高深的学问也弄得明白。
Devote your time to studies, and you will be able to acquire any knowledge no matter how profound it is.
手持一书，吟哦于四壁之中，神游于四海之外。
While being confined to your small room with a book in your hand, your mind will be roaming throughout the world.
既可以与老庄谈心，又可以跟柏拉图对话。
You will not only have a heart-to-heart chat with Laozi and Zhuangzi, but also converse with Plato.
心情烦闷时，济慈、雪莱在你耳畔喁喁细语，巴尔扎克为你搬演“人间喜剧”。
When you are in a mood, Keats and Shelley will whisper to you soothingly, and Balzac will amuse you with stories from his La Comédie humaine.
还有李白、杜甫、王尔德、莎士比亚......一大堆才华横溢的朋友等着你呼唤前来。
And a galaxy of talented friends like Li Bai, Du Fu, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare...will come to you at your call.
找不到朋友时，为什么不翻翻书？
If you are lonely, why not seek the company of books?
一座长桥
A Long Bridge
◎ 金圣华
◎ Jin Shenghua
翻译就像一座桥，桥两端，气候悬殊，风光迥异。
Translation is like a bridge with a very different climate and landscape at either end of it. 
两端之间，原隔着险峻的山谷，湍急的溪流。
Under the bridge, there lies a valley between steep mountains with a rapid stream flowing through it. 
两旁的人，各忙各的，世代相传.
Before the bridge is built, people on either side of the valley have for generations made no contact with those on the other. 
分别发展出一套不同的习俗风尚以及语言文化来。
Hence, there have developed two different customs and habits, and two different languages and cultures. 
有一天，这不同文化习俗的人，忽然想起要跟对岸打个招呼。
One day, people of the two sides, each with a different culture and custom, suddenly desire to communicate with each other. 
怎么办？
What can they do?
要渡过峡谷，不得不起一座桥，谁来起桥？
A bridge of course has to be built in order to cross the valley. But who is to build it?
终于来了，一群傻里傻气的志愿者。
At last, a group of people naively offer themselves for the job. 
问他们：“你们可知道，干这份工作，必须吃得起苦，干劲十足？”
Someone asks them, “Don't you know you'll have to go about this job earnestly and fear no hardship?”
他们点点头，充满信心的说：“我们有的是干劲，我们也不怕吃苦。”
They nod their heads and answer with confidence, “We're full of drive and not afraid of hardship. ”
再问道：“这份差事，待遇并不好，赶起工来，日以继夜。
The questioner says again, “The profession you're joining pays badly. And often you even have to work round the clock. 
说老实话，你们可知道付出的劳力与报酬并不相符？”
Frankly, you won't be fairly rewarded according to your labour.”
答道：“我们不是想发财。”
They answer, “We don't want to get rich. ”
再追问：“难道不知道从来没有人是干这一行而发达的吗？
The questioner says again, “Don't you know that none in this profession have ever become prosperous. 
做这一行必须默默耕耘，若想抱着沽名钓誉的心，还是趁早别干。
You have to toil away in obscurity. If you want to go after fame and compliments, you had better not choose this profession. 
桥造好了，人在桥上踏，没有谁会为你们立纪念碑的。”
When people walk on the bridge after it is built, none will ever think of putting up a monument to you. ”
又答道：“我们不是想出名。”
They answer again, “We don't care for fame. ”
最后只有叹道：“好吧！
The questioner concludes with a sigh, “OK!
既不为名也不为利，可别怪大家没提醒你们，这工作可得小心经营，起桥最要紧的是两端根基扎得实，起石桥得一块块石头砌；起木桥得一块块木头搭；哪怕是座绳桥也马虎不得，须一根根绳子打结，不然人一上桥就摔下深涧，怎么还到得了对岸？”
So you seek neither fame nor wealth. But mind you, you have to be very careful in doing this job. A solid foundation must be laid at each end of the bridge. A stone bridge is built with block after block of stone. A wooden bridge is built with piece after piece of wood. Even the building of a rope bridge requires great care. Each rope has to be tied tightly lest the foot passengers should fall into the ravine, to say nothing of reaching the opposite side. ”
桥还是建了，一座座、一条条。
Bridges are being built one after another. 
知识在传递，文化在交流。
Knowledge spreads and cultures interflow. 
可是有谁想起建桥人？
But who thinks of the bridge builders?
我喜欢
I Love.
◎张晓风
◎ Zhang Xiaofeng
我喜欢冬天的阳光，在迷茫的晨雾中展开。
I love the winter sun spreading out behind the morning haze. 
我喜欢那份宁静淡远，我喜欢那没有喧哗的光和热。
I love the pervading calm and peace of the moment as well as the light and warmth quietly brought by the sun. 
我喜欢在春风中踏过窄窄的山径，草莓像个精致的红灯笼，一路殷勤地张结着。
I love to saunter in the spring breeze on a narrow mountain path bedecked with strawberries growing graciously like delicate red lanterns. 
我喜欢抬头看树梢尖尖的小芽儿，极嫩的黄绿色里透着一派天真的粉红。
I love to look up at treetops to watch tiny buds with their tender yellowish green tinged with an artless pink. 
我喜欢夏日的永昼，我喜欢在多风的黄昏独坐在傍山的阳台上。小山谷里稻浪推涌，美好的稻香翻腾着。
I love the long days of summer. I love to sit by myself on a hillside balcony on a windy summer afternoon, watching rice rippling in the valley and sending forth its aroma. 
慢慢地，绚丽的云霞被浣净了，柔和的晚星一一就位。
When the splendid evening clouds are gone, gentle stars will take their places in the sky one after another. 
我喜欢看秋风里满山的芒。在山坡上，在水边上，白得那样凄凉，美而孤独。
I love to watch the pretty but forlorn Chinese silver grass, of a dreary white, growing against the autumn wind all over the hills—on the slopes, by the waterside. 
我也喜欢梦，喜欢梦里奇异的享受。
I love dreams, in which I enjoy seeing strange things. 
我总是梦见自己能飞，能跃过山丘和小河。
I always dream of myself flying in the air and jumping over small hillocks and rivers. 
我梦见棕色的骏马，发亮的鬈毛在风中飞扬。
I dreamed of a chestnut steed tossing its glossy mane in the wind. 
我梦见荷花海，完全没有边际，远远在炫耀着模糊的香红。
I dreamed of a boundless sea of lotus flowers flaunting their faint fragrance and pink colour from afar. 
最难忘记那次梦见在一座紫色的山峦前看日出——它原来必定不是紫色的，只是翠岚映着初升的红日，遂在梦中幻出那样奇特的山景。
The most unforgettable dream I have ever had is about myself watching the sunrise in front of a mountain, which, originally emerald, looked bizarre by taking on a purple colour under the rising sun of the early dawn. 
在现实生活里，我同样喜欢山。
In real life, I love mountains too. 
我喜欢看一块块平平整整、油油亮亮的秧田。那细小的禾苗密密地排在一起，好像一张多绒的毯子，总是激发我想在上面躺一躺的欲望。
I love level and glossy rice fields with seedlings growing so tightly together that they resemble as many hairy blankets, tempting me to lie down on them. 
我还喜欢花，不管是哪一种，我喜欢清瘦的秋菊，浓郁的玫瑰，孤洁的百合，以及幽闲的素馨。
I love flowers of all kinds. I love slender chrysanthemums, exuberant roses, untarnished lilies and leisurely jasmine. 
我也喜欢开在深山里不知名的小野花。
I also love unknown little wild flowers tucked away in remote mountains. 
我十分相信上帝在造万花的时候，赋给它们同样的尊荣。
I quite believe that they have been endowed with equal dignity and honour by the Creator. 
我喜欢另一种花儿，是绽开在人们笑颊上的。
I love another kind of flower—the smile on a human face. 
当寒冷的早晨我走在巷子里，对门那位清癯的太太笑着说：“早！”我就忽然觉得世界是这样的亲切，我缩在皮手套里的指头不再感觉发僵。
One freezing morning, when I, walking down an alley, was greeted with a smile and “Good morning! ” by a thin lady living in a house opposite to mine, I suddenly felt that the world was so warm and my gloved fingers were no longer numb with cold. 
到了车站开始等车的时候，我喜欢看见短发齐耳的中学生。
Once, I was delighted to meet some middle school girls with bobbed hair at a bus station. 
我喜欢她们美好宽阔又明净的额头，以及活泼清澈的眼神。
I loved to see their beautiful, clean and broad foreheads, and their lively, limpid eyes. 
我喜欢读信。
I love to read letters. 
我喜欢弟弟妹妹的信，那些幼稚纯朴的句子，总使我在泪光中重新看见南方那燃遍凤凰花的小城。
I love to hear from my brothers and sisters. Their naive and simple sentences make me recall tearfully my old home in the south—a small town aflame with the red flowers of flame trees. 
最不能忘记那年夏天，他从最高的山上为我寄来一片蕨类植物的叶子。在那样酷暑的气候中，我忽然感到甜蜜而又沁人的清凉。
I'll never forget how one summer a tree leaf sent by my husband from a remote high mountain made me feel at once happy and refreshed on the sultry day. 
我特别喜爱读者的来信。
I love, in particular, letters from my readers. 
每次捧读这些信件，总让我觉得一种特殊的激动。
It always gives me extraordinary thrill to read their letters. 
在这世上，也许有人已透过我看见一些东西。
I may have wised up some people to something in this world. 
我还喜欢看书，特别是在夜晚。
I also love reading books, especially at night. 
在书籍里面，我不能自抑地要喜爱那些泛黄的线装书，握着它就觉得握着一脉优美的传统，那涩黯的纸面蕴含着一种古典的美。
I cherish a deep love for thread-bound Chinese books yellowed with age. They show me our most brilliant traditions as well as a kind of classical beauty. 
历史的兴亡、人物的迭代本是这样虚幻，惟有书中的智慧永远长存。
While the rise and fall of a nation and the vicissitudes of life are all vanity, the wisdom contained in books is everlasting. 
我喜欢朋友，喜欢在出其不意的时候去拜访他们，尤其喜欢在雨中去叩湿湿的大门。
I love to have friends. I love to pay them a surprise visit. I love to knock at a friend's wet door on a rainy day. 
当她连跑带跳地来迎接我，雨云后的阳光就似乎忽然炽燃起来。
When he or she comes out hurriedly to meet me, I feel as if the rain had suddenly stopped and the sun were shining bright. 
我也喜欢坐在窗前等他回家。
I also love to sit by a window to wait for my husband to come back. 
虽然走过我家门的行人那样多，我总能分辨出他的足音。
I can always distinguish his footfall among those of many pedestrians before our home. 
如果有一个脚步声，一入巷子就开始跑，而且听起来是沉重急速的大阔步，那就准是他回来了！
On hearing someone who quickens his steps the moment he enters the lane and walks with heavy rapid strides, I'm sure it's my husband. 
我喜欢他把钥匙放进门锁的声音，我喜欢听他一进门就喘着气喊我的名字。
I love to hear him turning his key in the lock. I love to hear him calling out my name gaspingly as soon as he steps across our threshold. 
我喜欢松散而闲适的生活，我不喜欢精密地分配时间，不喜欢紧张地安排节目。
I love to live a relaxed and leisurely life. I don't like a tight schedule. I don't like an elaborately arranged program. 
我喜欢许多不实用的东西，我喜欢旧东西，喜欢翻旧相片。
I love many objects of no practical use. I love to leaf through an old photo album. 
我喜欢美丽的小装饰品，像耳环、项链和胸针。
I love small ornaments like ear-rings, necklaces and brooches. 
我喜欢充足的沉思时间。
I love to have enough time for meditation. 
我喜欢晚饭后坐在客厅里的时分。
I love to enjoy myself sitting in the drawing room after supper. 
我喜欢听一些协奏曲，一面捧着细瓷的小茶壶暖手。
I love to listen to a concerto while holding a small fine-china teapot to warm my hands. 
当此之时，我就恍惚能够想象一些田园生活的悠闲。
At a moment like this, I seem to taste of the leisureliness of idyllic life. 
我也喜欢和他并排骑着自行车，于星期天在黎明的道上一起赴教堂。
I also love to go cycling to church side by side with my husband on an early Sunday morning. 
朝阳的金波向两旁溅开，我遂觉得那不是一辆脚踏车，而是一艘乘风破浪的飞艇在滑行。
Riding against the sun's golden rays, I feel as if I were gliding along not on a bike, but in a motorboat, braving the wind and waves. 
我喜欢活着，而且深深地喜欢能在我心里充满着这样多的喜欢！
I love life. And I'm very glad that my heart is overflowing with so much happiness. 
高处何处有 赠给毕业同学
For the Mountaintop—To Students of the Graduating Class
◎ 张晓风
◎ Zhang Xiaofeng
很久很久以前，在一个很远很远的地方，一位老酋长正病危。
Long, long ago, in a very, very faraway place, a tribal chief found himself terminally ill. 
他找来村中最优秀的三个年轻人对他们说：“这是我要离开你们的时候了，我要你们为我做最后一件事。
He summoned three most promising young villagers to his bedside and said, “As I'm leaving you soon, I hope you can do one thing more for me. 
你们三个都是身强体壮而又智慧过人的好孩子，现在，请你们尽其可能的去攀登那座我们一向奉为神圣的大山。
Young men, you three are all unusually strong and resourceful, so I'd like you to strive to climb that high mountain which we've always been worshipping as a sacred place. 
你们要尽其可能爬到最高的、最凌越的地方，然后，折回头来告诉我你们的见闻。”
Now do your best to reach the topmost and most forbidding part of it and then turn back to tell me about your findings. ”
三天后，第一个年轻人回来了，他笑容满面，衣履光鲜：
Three days later, the first young man returned smartly dressed and said with smiling face, 
“酋长，我到达山顶了，我看到繁花夹道，流泉淙淙，鸟鸣嘤嘤，那地方真不坏啊。”
“Lord, I've been to the mountaintop where I saw flowers of all sorts lining both sides of a path, babbling spring water and singing birds. That's a real nice place. ”
老酋长笑笑说：
The old tribal chief replied smilingly, 
“孩子，那条路我当年也走过，你说的鸟语花香的地方不是山顶，而是山麓。
“Son, I've been there before. The place with singing birds and fragrant flowers, as you mentioned, is not the mountaintop. It's the foot of the mountain. 
你回去吧。”
Now you can leave. ”
一周以后，第二个年轻人也回来了。
A week later, the second young man also returned. 
他神情疲倦，满脸风霜：
He looked terribly weary and his face was weather-beaten. 
“酋长，我到达山顶了。我看到高大肃穆的松树林。我看到秃鹰盘旋，那是一个好地方。”
“Lord, I've been to the mountaintop where I saw groves of tall, solemn pine trees and vultures circling in the air. That's a real nice place. ”
“可惜呀！
“What a pity!” said the tribal chief. 
孩子，那不是山顶，那是山腰。
“Son, you've been halfway up the mountain rather than to its summit. 
不过，也难为你了，你回去吧。”
But you had a real tough time. Now you can leave. ”
一个月过去了，大家都开始为第三位年轻人的安危担心，他却一步一蹭，衣不蔽体地回来了。
A month later, everybody began to worry about the safety of the third young man. However, he finally showed up, hobbling along in rags. 
他发枯唇燥，只剩下清炯的眼神：
His hair was off-coloured and his lips parched, but his eyes were clear and bright. 
“酋长，我终于到达山顶。
“Lord, I succeeded in reaching the summit. 
但是，我该怎么说呢？
Well, what shall I say to you about it?
那里只有高风悲旋，蓝天四垂。”
There was nothing there but the wailing highland wind and the blue sky hanging over the land. ”
“你难道在那里一无所见吗？
“So you saw nothing at all? 
难道连蝴蝶也没有一只吗？”
Not even a butterfly?"
“是的，酋长，高处一无所有。
“No, lord, nothing. 
你所能看到的，只有你自己，只有‘个人’被放在天地间的渺小感，只有想起千古英雄的悲激心情。”
All you can see is yourself. You feel how insignificant you are in this infinite universe and how sorrowful and agitated you are at the thought of heroes through the ages. ”
“孩子，你到的是真的山顶。
“Son, you've reached the real mountaintop. 
按照我们的传统，无疑要立你做新酋长，祝福你。”
According to our tradition, you'll undoubtedly be made our new tribal chief. My best wishes to you. ”
真英雄何所遇？
What makes a real hero?
他遇到的是全身的伤痕，是孤单的长途，以及愈来愈真切的渺小感。
A real hero has cuts and bruises all over his body, he is all alone on a long journey and he feels with increasing sincerity how small he is. 
富人区
The Wealthy Quarter
◎ 冯骥才
◎ Feng Jicai
在洛杉矶，一位美国朋友开车带我去看富人区。
In Los Angeles, an American friend of mine drove me to an affluent quarter for a visit. 
富人区就是有钱人的聚居地。
It was a place inhabited by the rich. 
美国人最爱陪客人看富人区，好似观光。
Americans like to take their guests to see it as if on a sightseeing tour. 
到那儿一瞧，千姿夭态的房子和庭院，优雅、宁静、舒适，真如人间天堂。
Standing before me were houses and courtyards of a great variety of shapes, looking elegant, quiet and comfortable like in an earthly paradise. 
我忽然有个问题问他：“你们看到富人住在这么漂亮的房子里，会不会嫉妒？”
I suddenly put this question to him, “Don't you feel jealous of guys living in beautiful houses like these? ”
我这美国朋友惊讶地看着我，说：
He looked at me in astonishment and said, 
“嫉妒他们？
“Jealous?
为什么？
Why?
他们能住在这里，说明他遇上了一个好机会。
They live here because they've met with a good opportunity. 
如果将来我也遇到好机会，我会比他们做得还好！”
If I should also find a good opportunity in the future, I can do even better. ”
这便是标准的“老美”式的回答。
The answer he gave was typical of Americans. 
他们很看重机会。
Americans set great store by an opportunity. 
后来在日本，一位日本朋友说他要陪我看看不远的一处富人区。
Later, when I was in Japan, a Japanese friend of mine said he would take me to a nearby wealthy quarter and show me around. 
原来日本人也有这种爱好。
So, Japanese and Americans shared the same inclination to visit a wealthy quarter. 
日本富人区，小巧、幽静、精致，每座房子都像一个首饰盒，也挺美。
Japanese houses were small, quiet and exquisite, and each was like a beautiful jewellery box. 
我又想到上次问过美国人的那个问题，便问日本朋友：
I put to him the same question as I had asked the American, 
“你们看到富人们住着这么漂亮的房子，会嫉妒吗？”
“Are you jealous of the rich people living in these beautiful houses?”
这个日本朋友稍稍想了想，摇摇头说：“不会的。”
After pondering for a moment, he shook his head and said, “No, never. ”
继而他解释道，“如果一个日本人见到别人比自己强，通常会主动接近那个人，和他交朋友，向他学习，把他的长处学到手，再设法超过他。”
Then he explained, “When a Japanese finds somebody superior to himself, he'll contact him on his own initiative, make friends with him, learn from him, and try to excel him after learning all the strong points from him. ”
噢，日本人真厉害。我想。
Ah, the Japanese were a real aggressive sort! I was absorbed in thought. 
前不久，一位南方朋友来看我，闲谈中说到他们的城市发展得很快，已经出现国外那种“富人区”了。
Not long ago, a friend of mine called on me on his arrival from southern China. While chatting together, he told me how, like in foreign countries wealthy quarters had appeared in his own city in the wake of its fast development. 
我饶有兴趣地打听其中的情形，据说有的院子里还有喷水池，车库，门口有保安，还养大狼狗。
When I, out of curiosity, demanded to hear more details of them, he mentioned their fountains, garages, security personnel guarding the gates, wolfhounds, etc. 
我无意中再次想到问过美国和日本朋友的那个问题，拿来问他：
Then I asked him the same question as I had asked my American and Japanese friends, 
“有没有人去富煅区参观？”
“Do people visit the wealthy quarter?”
“有呀，常有人去看。但不能进去，在门口扒一扒头而已。”这位南方朋友说。
“Yes, they often do, ”said my friend. “But they can't get into it. They can only watch it from outside the gate. ”
“心理反应怎么样？
“How do you feel?
会不会嫉妒？”
Aren't you jealous?”
“嫉妒？”他眉毛一扬，笑道，“何止嫉妒，恨不得把那小子宰了！”
“Jealous? ”he brightened up and said with a smile. “Not only jealous. We're dying to finish off these rich guys. ”
我听了怔住。
I was stunned to hear it. 
不死鸟
The Surviving Bird
◎ 三毛
◎ San Mao
一年多前，爱书人杂志给我出了一个题目“如果你只有三十天的寿命，你将会做些什么？”
Over a year ago, the Book Enthusiast magazine asked me to write an article in answer to the question, “What would you do suppose you were to live for only 30 more days from now?”
我一直没有动笔。
So far I still haven't set pen to paper. 
荷西听我说起这件事情，也曾好奇地问过我，——“你会做些什么呢？”
Hexi, learning of it from me, asked with curiosity, “What would you do?”
当时，我正在揉面，我举起了沾着白粉的手，温和地摸摸他的头发，慢慢地说：“傻子，我不会死的，因为还得给你做饺子呢！”
I was then kneading dough. Raising my hand caked with white flour to caress his hair with tenderness, I said unhurriedly, “O silly, I'm not going to die. I have to live on to make jiaozi for you!”
以后，我们又谈起这份欠着的稿子，我的答案仍是那么的简单而固执——“我一样的守这个家，有责任的人是没有死亡的权利的。”
Later when we again mentioned the article I was supposed to write at the request of the magazine, I still took a simple and resolute stand. “I'll keep watching over the house, ”said I. “A person bearing responsibility for a home has no right to die at all. ”
虽然预知死亡是我喜欢的一种生命结束的方式，可是我仍然不能死，在这个世界上有三个与我个人存亡牢牢相连的人。那便是我的父亲、母亲还有荷西，如果世界上有他们活着一日，我便不可以死，连神也不能将我取去，因为我不肯。
Although I know my favourite way to end this life is by death, I still don't want to die. Three persons in this world have their fate so closely tied up with my life and death. They are my parents and Hexi. I refuse to die as long as they're alive. Not even a god can take me away when I say no. 
让我父母在渐入高年时失去爱女，那么他们一生的幸福和慰藉，会因为这一件事情完全崩溃，这样尖锐的打击不可以由他们来承受，那是过分残酷也过分不公平了。
The loss of their beloved daughter would deprive my ageing parents of their life-long happiness and consolation. It would be cruel and unfair for them to suffer the crushing blow. 
要荷西半途折翼，失去他相依为命的爱妻，那么在他日后的心灵上会有什么样的伤痕，什么样的烙印？如果因我的消失而使得荷西的余生不再有一丝笑容，那么我便更不能死。
If Hexi should lose his beloved wife, with whom he had been living for interdependence, what an emotional trauma he would undergo! And what bitterness would be deeply engraved in his mind! The thought of the complete vanishing of smiles from his face during the rest of his life as a result of his bereavement made me all the more determined against my death. 
这些，又一些，因我的死亡而将使父母及丈夫所遭受到的大劫难，每想起来，便是不忍，不忍，不忍又不忍。
I cannot bear to think of the great adversity to be brought on my parents and husband by my death. No, I can't, absolutely can't. 
毕竟，先走的是比较幸福的，留下的并不是强者，可是想到这彻心切肤的病痛，我仍是要说——为了爱的缘故，这永别的苦杯，还是留给我来喝下吧。
Yes, those who leave first are happier than those left behind, and the latter are not necessarily the stronger. In spite of my painful illness, I reiterate that for the sake of love, let me stay behind to drink down the last bitter cup of parting. 
我愿意在父亲、母亲及荷西的生命圆环里，做最后离世的一个，如果我先去了，而将永远的哀伤留给世上的他们，那么是死不瞑目的，因为我的爱有多深，我的牵挂便有多长。
I hope to remain with my parents and Hexi in their lifetime and be the last to pass away. It would make me turn in my grave if I should be the first to die, thus leaving them with perpetual sorrow. My concern for them is as deep as my love for them. 
所以，我几乎没有选择地做了暂时的不死鸟，我的羽毛虽然因为荷西的先去，已经完全脱落，无力再飞，可是那颗碎掉的心，仍是父母的珍宝。
Therefore, I have no choice but to be a temporary surviving bird. Though I can't fly any more, having lost all my feathers due to Hexi's death, my broken heart is still treasured by my parents. 
再痛，再伤，他们也不肯我死去，我也不忍放掉他们啊。
They just won't let me die despite my spiritual agony and wound. And nor can I bear to lose them. 
总有那么一天，在金色的彼岸，会有六只爱的手臂张开了在迎我进入永生，那时，我方肯含笑狂奔而去了。
The day will surely come when six loving open arms on the other golden bank will welcome me to eternity. Then, and only then will I rush forward with a smile. 
这份文字本是为着另一个题目写的，可是我拒绝了只有一月寿命的假想，生的艰难，尘世的苦，死别时一刹的碎心又碎心，还是由我一个人来承担吧。
I originally intended this article to be written under another title. But I rejected the hypothesis that I was going to die in 30 days. The trials and tribulations of living, the sufferings of mortal life, the acute sorrow of parting for good—let me bear all that alone. 
父亲，母亲，荷西，我的亲人，我爱你们胜于自己的生命，那么我便护着你们的幸福，不轻言消失吧！
Dad, Mom and Hexi, my dear ones, I love you more than I do myself. So let me guard your happiness and never unthinkingly speak of my death. 
今夜，我是你的新娘
I'm Your Bride Tonight
◎ 叶梦
◎ Ye Meng
昨天你对我说：“我们结婚吧！”
Yesterday you said to me, “Let's get married!”
十二年来，你第一次说出这句话。
That's something you've said for the first time in twelve years. 
不容我回答，你接着说：明天吧！
And you added before I could reply, “How about tomorrow!
我一天也不能等下去了。明天我们结婚——
I can't wait any longer, not even a single day. Let's get married tomorrow. ”
已经决定了，没有太多的时间容我考虑，容我犹豫。
So it was all set. There was little time left for me to weigh and consider. 
这个不可逆转的事实，只需二十多个小时，就要变成现实。
The irreversible was to become a fait accompli in a little more than twenty hours. 
一切都是很简单的。
All would be very simple.
不需要酒宴和仪式，不需要通知任何亲友，只需禀告父母，只需要把床铺换上全新的被褥。
No wedding banquet or ceremony. No need to notify friends and relatives. All I had to do was inform my parents, and put on brand-new bed-clothes. 
我以为结婚是个人生命史上十分隆重的事件，我完全没有必要把很多相干与不相干的人请来，像召开“新闻发布会”一样在烟酒糖果之间宣布我们的结合，在漫天酒气中让人来祝贺来摆布来评头品足。
To me, marriage is a very solemn matter in one's life and therefore it is absolutely unnecessary to invite a great many people to the wedding, both related and unrelated, and announce to them our matrimony with cigarettes, wine and sweets like at a news briefing, so that they can indulge in wining, expressing good wishes, chatting about the bride's appearance and what not. 
我没有虚荣心，我不需要显摆不需要张扬，我不需要任何人认可，也不需要贿赂传统的舆论。
I'm not vain. I don't want to go in for pomp and celebrate our nuptials in a big way. I don't seek the approval of anyone, nor do I try to buy over those holding conventional views on marriage. 
结婚是我们个人的事，我们完全有权利选择与常规不同的形式。
Marriage is our personal business. We are fully entitled to go about it in a way of our own choice, unconventional as it may be. 
我不需要任何人参加我的婚礼，安谧和神秘的氛围正是我为这种神圣的生命仪式所作的设计。
I don't expect the presence of many guests at my wedding because tranquility plus an air of mystery is what I design for this once-in-a-lifetime sacred ceremony. 
三十五年的生命将要进入另一种样式，三十五的后面需要打一个句号，需要刻一块里程碑。
My life, at the end of the thirty-five years, is going to take on a new pattern. It will mark the end of the old phase of my life and the beginning of the new. 
属于我处女的最后一个白天是我一个人静静地待在房里，我悄悄地布置着我的新房，我用我的双手不停地做这做那，以分散我纷乱的思绪。
On the last day of my virginity, I stayed indoors alone, quietly decorating my wedding chamber. I diverted my mind from a medley of thoughts by keeping my hands busy with this and that. 
喜悦悄悄地在身体里渗透，与之俱来的更多的是恐惧和忧虑，也有一种不可挽回的悲哀。
A joyful feeling came over me stealthily, together with fear and worry, and helpless sorrow too. 
我好像是一块苍白的画布，将要被涂上各种颜色的图案，我不无痛惜地感觉，好像面临一种破坏性的灾难。
I felt like a pale canvas soon to be daubed with a multicoloured pattern. I felt sad as if I were faced with a big disaster. 
这一个白天真是漫长，让我有足够的时间回顾三十五年的过去。
It was a long day, long enough for me to muse over the past thirty-five years. 
少女时芬芳浪漫的憧憬已经离我模糊而遥远，青年时期追求的苦涩却历历在目，不管是芬芳还是苦涩，都要在这里打一个句号，我从不后悔。
The beautiful dreams of romance in early girlhood were vague and far off. But the bitter experience of courting in later days were still clear before my eyes. Beautiful or bitter, both are of another day. And I'll never regret at all. 
不管我的选择是否正确，已不容我再作犹豫，我将面对新的生活义无反顾地走过去。
Correct or not, the decision is made and allows of no hesitation. I'll go ahead resolutely to live a new life. 
不容推却的那个夜终于姗姗来迟。
The unshirkable night came at last. 
新房里有一种难耐的宁静。
An oppressive silence reigned in the wedding chamber. 
屋外突然锣鼓喧天，鼓乐齐鸣，爆竹和焰火把黑夜涂抹得五彩斑斓。
Suddenly, there broke out outside a deafening sound of gongs and drums amidst loud music. Firecrackers and fireworks sent the dark night blazing with colour. 
这是为我们奏起的鼓乐么？
Was the music for us?
夜终于静下去，
The night finally relapsed into silence. 
鼓乐沉没了，
The music was no more. 
一切声响都已停歇。
All was quiet. 
电灯已经关掉，新房里燃着两支红烛。
The light was switched off, leaving two red candles burning away in the room. 
我坐在红烛之下。
I sat by the red candles. 
你坐在客厅的沙发上。
You sat in an armchair in the drawing room. 
我突然希望我们之间隔河隔渡似的对峙永远下去。
I suddenly wished we would both remain permanently where we were as if separated by a ravine between us. 
这时，你向我走过来。
Just then you began to move towards me. 
你的脚步很重很重，一步一步踏在我紧绷的心弦上。
I listened to your heavy steps with a throbbing heart. 
你离我越来越近了。
You came nearer and nearer. 
突然，我感到我的肢体变得冰一样凉，一种被破坏的恐怖突然袭击了我，我的心里突然喊出这样一句：这下完了。
My limbs went ice-cold when suddenly there came over me the presage of coming ravages. I uttered abruptly from my heart. “I'm done for. ”
我已经无法回避，我将要变成一个真正的女人了。
I could not escape becoming a real woman. 
你已经走到我的身边来了，我突然觉得你像陌生人一样不敢看你。
As you came to my side, I was afraid to look at you like you were a stranger. 
红烛吐出的烛香和烟气在封闭的新房里弥漫。
The wedding chamber was permeated with the aroma and smoke of the red candles. 
“今夜，我是你的新娘啊！”
“I'm your bride tonight!”
很久很久，我的心里哀哀地吐出这样一句来。
It took me quite a long while to utter these words from the bottom of my heart, though with a touch of grief. 
欣赏自己
On Self-Appreciation
◎ 英培安
◎ Ying Pei'an
不怕直说，我是相当欣赏自己的。
Frankly, I very much appreciate myself. 
我承认自己有许多不如人的地方，但也知道并不老是这样差劲。
Yes, I admit I'm in many respects not as good as other people, but I don't think I'm always no good. 
所以，我做了一件事，写了一篇文章，只要自觉还不错我可以乐上几天，遇有人赞，更飘飘然得不像话；甚至还会忘其所以，插上几句自夸的话。
When I find what I've done or written is okay, I'll remain pleased with myself for quite a few days, and, in case I receive praise for it, I'll even become so swollen-headed as to add a few words to glorify myself. 
真的，我一点也不谦虚。
True, I'm not modest at all. 
或者这就是自负吧，恐怕要给人骂了。
People may call me conceited. 
但有什么不对呢？
But I think otherwise. 
我也欣赏别人，凡是好的东西我都欣赏。
I also appreciate other people. I appreciate anything good. 
只懂得欣赏别人而忘了欣赏自己，岂不是太不公平了？
Isn't it unfair to forget appreciating myself while appreciating others?
但是，我们华人总是比较谦虚，而且引以为荣。
We Chinese are generally inclined to be modest, and we take pride in being so. 
自己的太太叫拙荆，文章曰拙作。
For example, a Chinese will call his own wife zhuojing, meaning “my humble wife”, and his own writings zhuozuo, meaning “my poor writings”. 
如果你当真叫他的太太山芭婆，文章如狗屁，他保证勃然大怒，和你拍桌子绝交。
But if you should call his wife a “rustic woman” or his writings “trash”, he would, I'm sure, slap the table in a rage and declare he would make a clean break with you. 
其实，你所说的，和他说的，可能并没什么两样。
As a matter of fact, there is probably no difference at all between what is said by him and you respectively. 
我以为，如果你的东西确是好的，直接说它好，没有什么不对。
I don't think it's wrong for you to freely praise yourself if you're really worthy of praise. 
老王卖瓜，只要卖的是好瓜，为什么不能自卖自夸？
As we know, there is an old Chinese saying disparaging a melon peddler, named Lao Wang, who keeps praising his own goods. Well, why can't he praise his melons if they are really sweet and juicy?
老兄，老王是靠卖瓜吃饭的，叫他也学我们书生扭扭捏捏，对自己的瓜谦虚一番，生意还用做么？
Friends, Lao Wang sells melons for a living. How could he carry on business if he, by imitating the affectations of us intellectuals, were to show false modesty about his melons?
他保证饿死大吉。
He would sure enough die of starvation. 
能欣赏自己，才能敬业乐业，写文章的人，若老是觉得自己的文章不行，我不相信他有信心涂下去。
Self-appreciation is therefore key to professional dedication and enjoyment of work. One will lose confidence in continuing with writing when he ceases to admire his own essays. 
卖文的，更不必说了。
Needless to say, the same is true of those who make a living with their pen. 
搪瓷茶缸
The Enamel Mug
◎ 万全
◎ Wan Quan
每走进百货公司，看到那些洁白的、柔和的、米黄色的和花色诱人的搪瓷茶缸，总感到一种愉快。
Whenever I visit a department store, I always take delight in seeing the enamel mugs which, pure white or creamy, are graceful in pattern and colour. 
上中学的时候，由于少女的洁癖，喜欢使用白色的搪瓷器皿。
In my middle school days, I preferred to use white enamelware because, like most young girls, I was very particular about cleanliness. 
记得那时候要买一只瑞典货的纯白大茶缸，要花五块多光洋，得进“惠罗公司”之类外国铺子。
In those days, I remember, a Swede-made pure white mug would cost five silver dollars, and it was obtainable only at a foreign firm. 
1939年在重庆，某商店从滇缅路运进来一批搪瓷茶缸，价钱当然比战前更贵。
In 1939, a certain store in Chongqing offered for sale, at a price of course higher than in prewar days, a stock of enamel mugs they had laid in through the Yunnan-Burma highway. 
我凑足了钱，托朋友进城捎了一只；我的朋友也许过于紧张，一出商店门就将茶缸掉在地上，摔脱了一块瓷。
With the money I had raised. I asked a friend leaving for town to buy an enamel mug for me. Unfortunately, probably due to nervousness, he dropped it onto the ground the moment he stepped out of the store and had it chipped. 
以后，我带着这只有疤痕的茶缸进了抗日根据地。
Afterwards I went to the anti-Japanese base area carrying with me the enamel mug with a chip in it. 
它的用途倒意外地多起来了——喝水、盛饭、热菜，给生病的同志煮粥，必要时还可以代行“面盆”、“浴缸”的职责。
Unexpectedly, over there it turned out to be a multipurpose utensil. It was used for carrying drinking water or cooked rice, for heating up food, cooking congee for sick comrades, and, when necessary, as a substitute for a basin or bathtub. 
从此，茶缸和我有了进一步的“战斗的友情”。
Thenceforth, the militant friendship between it and me became even more profound. 
1946年来到北平，很想买一只新的茶缸，代替那只为我鞠躬尽瘁的旧茶缸。
In 1946, when I came to Peiping, I was eager to buy a new enamel mug to replace the old one which had given me years of devoted service. 
可是当时的北平还不易买到这玩意。
But a new one was hard to come by in the then Peiping. 
有一次，在东单小市上，在一个只有几件售品的地摊上，我发现了一只纯白的瑞典茶缸。
Once, while roaming about a small market in Dongdan, I came across a pure white Swedish enamel mug at a roadside stall displaying only a handful of articles for sale. 
这正是我所需要的。
That was just what I needed. 
可是地摊女主人的索价超过我的购买力。
But the price asked by the woman owner of the stall was too high for me. 
我希望她降低售价，她竟眼泪盈眶；这时我才发觉她是一个知识分子模样的青年妇女。
When I bargained, I noticed tears brimming in her eyes. And then I also realized that she was sort of an educated young woman. 
她解释说家有病人等钱吃药，所卖的是自己家用的东西。
She said what she had for sale was her personal belongings because she was badly in need of money to pay for the medical care of someone at home. 
我马上尽我所有付了价款。
Thereupon, I gave her all the money I had with me for the mug.
她劝说我再买一件什么，我虽然心情沉重，很想帮她的忙，但也实在没有钱了。
She hoped that I would buy one more article from her. But, sympathetic as I was with her, I couldn't buy anything else because I really had no money left in my pocket. 
以后，离开了北平，这只茶缸又陪伴我经历了解放战争中的几年，而且，它常常使我清晰地回忆起那位青年妇女的含泪的眼神——在穷困与内战中经受着痛苦的北平人民的眼神。
Later, after leaving Peiping, I went through several years of the War of Liberation in company with the mug which often reminded me vividly of the tearful eyes of the young woman—tearful eyes typical of the common people of Peiping in the throes of hunger and civil war. 
1949年又进入城市。
In 1949, I again came to live in Peiping. 
我的丈夫以他的全部零用钱买了一只米黄色茶缸赠我，作为胜利的纪念。
My husband used all his pocket money to buy me a creamy enamel mug in commemoration of the victory of the War of Liberation. 
这一只是美国货，当时百货店说：“这种米色搪瓷只有美国货。”
It was of US make. “All creamy ones are US products, ”declared the salesman. 
可惜，它对于我并不重要了。一来因为年岁增加，已经失去对于某些生活小节的执著；二来和平的城市生活中，茶缸的用途已经回复正常。
But the mug isn't so important to me now because firstly, at my age, I'm no longer so particular about trivial matters in my personal life, and secondly it has resumed its normal uses in peaceful urban life. 
可是，至今我碰到各种搪瓷茶缸，仍不免要看它们一眼。
Nevertheless, up to now, whenever I come across enamel mugs of any kind, I still cannot help taking a look at them. 
因为像瑞典货一样纯白的也好，“只有美国货”的米黄色的也好，都已经是我们中国的出品了；而且品种花色常在增加，价钱也便宜得多了。
It's because both pure white Swede-made and creamy US-made mugs have now given way in the market to Chinese products of ever increasing variety of colours and designs and much lower prices. 
当年东单地摊上那位出卖了自用茶缸的主妇，想必早已添置了我国自制的新的茶缸吧。
The woman owner of the roadside stall at Dongdan who sold me her personal mug must have long ago bought a new one of Chinese make for her own use.